


A Purity Short: Cacophony

by Sueric



Series: Purity [19]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2020-05-15 16:31:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 77,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19299505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sueric/pseuds/Sueric
Summary: How do you rebuild a life once it's been shattered? A different kind of assignment; a different kind of friendship ...A Purity continuation based in the Purity universe.Unsolicited critiques will be deleted.





	1. Darkness

~~ ** _A Purity Short_** ~~  
~ ** _Cacophony_** ~

 

~ ** _Chapter_** **_One_** ~  
~ ** _Darkness_** ~

  

~ _Bevelle, Maine_ ~  
~ _May 19, 2037_ ~

~o~

 

 

Scowling at the illuminated screen of his cell phone, Derrick Cartham—Deke, for short, but best known as just Cartham—ignored the rumbling of thunder, high overhead, as he braced himself with a foot down on the ground upon the fully tricked-out, matte black 1962 Harley Davidson Sportster with burnt chrome fittings that he’d rebuilt from the frame up, standing within the thin ring of light from a street lamp above on the outskirts of Bevelle, Maine.  The motorcycle was dark for a reason, allowing him a level of anonymity—something greatly preferred in his line of work—and it looked fine as fuck, so, there was that, too . . .

‘ _Stop by ASAP.  The sooner, the better,_ ’ it said.

That was it, and he was used to getting fairly short and to the point texts from Cain Zelig.  Even so, Zelig rarely used the term ASAP, never demanded his response in such a dire kind of way, and, since the North American tai-youkai gotten married a number of years ago, he’d stopped, going out of his way to drop by the mansion later at night, as he always had after Zelig’s daughter was born.

The tai-youkai had wished to keep them away from Bellaniece, not that he could blame him.  After all, he wasn’t exactly what could be considered acceptable company to keep around such a small girl.  Nowadays, he tried to keep his visits brief, even though Cain didn’t seem to feel quite the same, especially since his heir had been born, but Sebastian Zelig was still little more than a kit at just around five-and-a-half years old.  Eventually, he’d learn all the trappings that went along with the Zelig’s office, given that he’d inherit the position himself once day.

Then again, it was also a vastly different situation, he figured, given that the Zelig’s new mate was no stranger to the office of the tai-youkai.  Her people back in Japan were related to the Inu no Taisho.  She was, in fact, Sesshoumaru Inutaisho’s beloved niece and the cousin of the current Japanese tai-youkai, Toga Inutaisho.

‘ _Yeah, okay.  You going over there or are you going to sit here on the bridge, looking like some kind of freak until someone spots you and ends up, calling the fuzz to report a shady figure, lurking out here in the middle of the night like you’re scoping out some place?_ ’

Grunting low in his throat, he tucked the phone into the pocket of the beat-up-looking biker jacket, he paused long enough to dig a stick of Doublemint gum out, popping it into his mouth, before he kicked the bike to life, gaining a little speed and swinging around in a wide u-turn, heading back the way he’d come.  He’d picked up the gum habit a few years ago when he’d given up smoking.  He’d successfully kicked it, yes, but the gum had stayed.

It was a mild night with a myriad of stars, hanging low in the sky, reflecting off the waters of the bay with the sliver of the moon doing little to dispel the deep shadows of the New England landscape.  There were some houses out this way, but, for the most part, people tended to buy a lot of land, cherishing the illusion of wide-open space, and in this place, the land could still be smelled, could still be appreciated.  He suspected that that was why the Zelig chose to settle in this area, too.

As for him?  His family originally hailed from around the Boston area.  He could still remember isolated moments, more like photographs that only existed in his own head, and he supposed that was natural enough, given that he was just a kit himself back then.

He was born shortly after the youkai uprising that had ultimately ended in the death of the first North American tai-youkai, the first Sebastian, Zelig’s father.  His father had continued to work for the interim tai-youkai, Ben Rhodes, now Philips, for a number of years, and later, he’d offered his services to Zelig when he’d returned from Japan where he’d been fostered with Sesshoumaru.

In fact, Tarse Cartham, his father, had continued to hunt for the tai-youkai up until his untimely death when he’d been ambushed while out on a job.  The brother of a serpent-youkai had ambushed and shot him after laying a trap to lure him in.  When his mother had died less than three months later, Cartham was left on his own.  He was ten at the time.

From there, he’d gone to live with his aunt and uncle in Virginia, but he’d gotten into a lot of trouble.  Losing his parents had instilled an anger in him that he didn’t have the skills to deal with back then.  At first, his aunt and uncle had tried to rein him in.  That kind of control, however, just made things worse, and Cartham had rebelled in every possible way that he could.  Between his own hostility with their insistence that he behave and the way that his uncle tended to lord his authority over him, reminding him at every opportunity, just how grateful he ought to be that they’d even offered to open their home to him when he had nowhere else to go, he started trying to avoid the old homestead as much as he could.  By the time he was thirteen, he’d been kicked out of their home and was living wherever he found shelter, surviving on whatever he could beg, borrow, or steal.  In fact, it wasn’t until he was nearly fifteen, when he’d just happened to run into Ben Rhodes , that everything changed.  Ben, who had been in the area to meet with a few youkai, had caught him, trying to break into the one and only store in the tiny town where he lived.

It was Ben who had brought him to a friend of his, an old elk-youkai named Rhen Thornton, who lived, deep in the hills of Canada.  There, he’d trained Cartham in the old ways of fighting, in the ancient art of meditation, and slowly, those things had helped to reform him.  He’d spent hours—sometimes days—wandering through the forests, over the hills, down in the valleys of south eastern Canada.  He’d taught himself how to track animals and to forage for food, to thrive in a natural environment.  With the training had come a level of understanding that he hadn’t had before.  He’d also developed a healthy respect for the world at large and for his place in it

The anger that he’d felt so keenly slowly slipped away, leaving in its wake, a certain melancholy when he truly stopped and considered the idea that he really had no one and nothing.  Rhen, being the old man that he was, was so set in his ways.  He rarely spoke more than the bare minimum, never given to sharing stories of his old days, of the life he’d led for such a long time.

Cartham never actually knew what had happened to Rhen.  It had to have been almost thirty years after he’d first left the old mountain man, after he’d started working for Zelig that he’d gone back, only to find the small cabin, empty, obviously having been abandoned some time before.  Rhen had said once that when he was ready to go, he’d venture north, get lost, deep in those forests and mountains to find a good place to die.  If that’s what he did, Cartham never found out, but he’d also never seen his mentor again.

The only thing he had from Rhen, though, was a piece of paper that was folded up, laying on the table under the dirty old oil lamp.  It was the deed to Rhen’s property, left to him, and he still owned it now, even though he rarely ever went up there.  It wasn’t a conscious decision, no.  It wasn’t as though he were avoiding it.  He simply found it easier to stay closer to Zelig.  It was a lot more convenient, especially when Rhen’s mountain cabin was about as rough as it could be with no electricity, no real road into it, and he hadn’t had the time nor the inclination to update it, either.

He couldn’t rightfully say, when he’d first considered, following in Tarse Cartham’s formidable footsteps.  He supposed that, on some level, he’d always known where his future would lie.  The very first assignment he’d taken for Zelig was the hunt to find and eliminate Glen Franscis, the serpent-youkai who had killed his father.  Cain, to his credit, hadn’t wanted to send him on that one.  In the end, however, Cartham had insisted, and he’d been the one to take down that bastard—and he wasn’t sorry for it, either.  But after that . . .

He hadn’t been prepared for the strange sort of emptiness that accompanied his initial success.  It wasn’t until then that he’d even realized that he had banked so much of his future upon settling the score with the serpent.  Defeating him had brought Cartham a level of satisfaction, of course.  He just hadn’t understood how much of his very existence he’d dedicated to the idea of finding him and bringing him down.  When he’d finally done it?

In hindsight, that was one of the worst periods of his life.  He had no focus, no reason.  He’d just worked, barely noting the passage of time.  It really wasn’t until he was asked to assess a new hunter, Larry Rowland, that he had started to realize that what he did . . . It was important.  Larry was a quiet guy, but he had a certain enthusiasm for hunting, and when Cartham had asked him why, he’d said that it was because he could help other people come to terms with things through his ability to hunt down what he’d called, ‘the bad guys’, that if doing so meant that others could sleep better at night, then it was what he wanted to do.

And, Cartham had realized, it was true.

He’d learned his lessons, and he did his job well, and, while he couldn’t say he enjoyed his occupation, exactly, he would allow that there was a certain measure of satisfaction in knowing that the youkai that he brought to justice wouldn’t be out there, running rampant, either.

It was late, nearly midnight, by the time he stopped his motorcycle before the Zelig mansion.  Despite the hour, though, the lights in Cain’s study were ablaze, and  Cartham wasn’t surprised to see the darkened shape of the tai-youkai in the window.  Before he even managed to reach the wide stone stairs of the porch, the heavy door swung open, and Cain stepped outside, pausing long enough to light a cigarette before shuffling down the steps and onto the walk.  “Hey, Cartham.  Thanks for coming so quickly.”

Seeing no choice but to fall into step beside Cain as he led the way down the meandering walkway, ultimately heading for the staircase that led to the beach below, Cartham ran a hand through his shaggy mane of black and white hair.  “You said ASAP, didn’t you?” he countered.

Cain nodded.  “So, I did . . .”

Cartham frowned.  It wasn’t really like him to beat around the bush, especially when it came to issuing orders.  Still, something was bugging Cain, though Cartham figured he’d get around to it eventually.  “All right.  What’s the job?”

Letting out a deep breath, turning his face toward the stars high above, Cain seemed to be concentrating on the dissipating smoke.  “To be honest, it’s not a regular job,” he finally admitted.  “In fact, it’s . . . It’s kind of more of a favor than anything.  I mean, you’ll still be paid, but . . .”

Something about the way Cain seemed to be dancing around the subject made his frown deepen into a full-out scowl.  After all, he’d never made much of a fuss, no matter what kind of tasks were set for him.  Now wasn’t really any different.  Or, maybe it was . . . “All right . . .”

“Bellaniece’s friend, Kelly . . . It seems like she’s been having some . . . some issues.  I just wanted you to see if you couldn’t find out, what’s going on with her.”

“Your daughter’s friend?  That’s the assignment?”  Blinking in mild confusion at Cain’s request, Cartham shook his head.  “You want me to check on her?  What, exactly, do you mean by, ‘issues’?”

Cain sighed, tossing the cigarette butt away and slowly turning to stare at him.  Even in the darkness, the tai-youkai’s eyes seemed to glow, seemed to gather the stingy light.  It was something that Cartham hadn’t actually noticed in many people, but something about Zelig . . . “Belle’s tried to talk to her.  Kelly always says things are fine, and then, the calls tend to end pretty fast, but she doesn’t believe her.  Kelly’s been through a lot . . . and then, she called today to tell me that Kelly’s phone has been disconnected.  The long and short of it is that Belle’s afraid that she’s in some kind of trouble.”

Cartham crossed his arms over his thick chest.  “So, you want me to check on her friend?  And do what?  Listen, Zelig, I’m not a babysitter.  In fact, I’m about the farthest from, so if—”

“I made some preliminary calls.  Her parents said that she refuses to see them—they don’t know why—and then, her father mentioned that she was evicted from her apartment a couple weeks ago.  They had to go and pack up her things.  He said that she didn’t take much of anything with her.  She’s just . . . just gone . . .” He sighed, shook his head.  “She . . . She’s in trouble, and I . . .”

Cartham pinned Cain with a dark glower, but it was directed more toward the situation than at Cain himself.  “You know, right?  You can’t save everyone, and even if you could, if she’s so hell-bent on destruction, do you think she even wants that?”

Cain’s expression mirrored Cartham’s.  “Didn’t you?”

“That’s different.  I was just a kit.  Might’ve thought I wasn’t, but I was . . . Anyway, you know, right?  If someone goes to the trouble of disappearing, chances are good they don’t want to be found.”

Rubbing his forehead, Cain shrugged, but it seemed more like a, ‘what-can-you-do’ type of gesture than anything else.  “Humor me, will you?  Just find her and bring her back, at least to talk to her parents . . . Or make sure that she’s in a decent place.  I have no idea, what’s going on, but Kelly . . .”

He grunted.  “Isn’t she the one who got burnt in that house fire?  The one Belle’s mate fixed up?”

“Yes . . . and she grew up with Bellaniece, too.  They were as close as sisters.  She was around often enough that she could have been her sister.”  Cain paused, heaving a heavy sigh, shaking his head as though he just couldn’t quite figure out, just what to say.  In the end, though, he turned toward Cartham, held out his hands before letting them drop to his sides once more.  “This isn’t just for Belle, Cartham.  It’s for me, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dropping a dingy towel into the plastic bucket on the cleaning cart, Kelly Hendricks let out a deep breath that blew her light brown bangs up out of her eyes as she hooked the bottle of industrial cleaner and disinfectant onto the metal bar.  Then, she pulled a few wash cloths, a couple hand towels, and three thin, white bath sheets out of the cabinet and hurried over to the bathroom.

She’d already wiped down the sheet glass mirror over the stained and old sink and had sprayed disinfectant on the entire surface, replaced the partially used complimentary bottles of shampoo and soaps and lotion, and the only thing she had left to do in this room was to replace the soiled towels and gather the used ones.

It wasn’t too bad, as far as jobs went, she figured.  Since arriving in the city, she’d already tried working tables at a couple dive bars, but she’d discovered in short order that she really hated that.  Most of the patrons of those bars were the rejects from the casinos farther down the avenue—the fools who had lost, big, and had come in to squander what little cash they had left—and, as such, they weren’t always the nicest or the most generous patrons.  At least working at the Oasis Hotel—a place that wasn’t nice by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t the worst, either—she didn’t have to deal with people, and that, as far as she was concerned, was the best reason of all.  That, and they hadn’t really been too concerned when the address she’d given was that of a local women’s shelter, and they hadn’t cared that she didn’t have any real identification on her, either, other than an expired Maine driver’s license.

She hadn’t actually meant to end up here.  It was all just kind of luck, when it came down to it.  After court had issued the Writ of Possession that granted her a whole forty-eight hours to vacate the apartment that she hadn’t paid rent on in close to six months, she’d taken the money she had and had bought the first bus ticket out of Bevelle, Maine: a ticket that just happened to take her to Las Vegas.

It was good enough.  To be honest, she didn’t really care, where she was.

Everything she owned, she’d left behind.  She hadn’t brought a thing with her, just her wallet with five bucks in it.  She’d even left her cell phone behind.  After all, she hadn’t had the money to pay that bill in weeks, either, not since she’d lost the job she’d had, working as a receptionist at a local dentist office.  Of course, when she hadn’t bothered to go into work and hadn’t bothered to call in, either, it stood to reason that they would fire her eventually.

And she just hadn’t cared about that, either.

She didn’t really care about anything.

She didn’t want to look at her parents, didn’t want to talk to her best friend, living it up, halfway around the world.  She didn’t want to leave the apartment, but she hated to feel so cooped up inside it, too.  To be honest, she hadn’t actually talked to either of her parents in well over a year, at least, more than a perfunctory hello when it couldn’t be avoided, and even that was tinged with a level of cold detachment.  They’d given up on her, hadn’t they?  Even before the fire, when she was deep in the throes of her own kind of teenage rebellion . . . At some point, her shenanigans had become one trial too many, one instance beyond what they could deal with, and maybe one day, she’d forgive them for all but abandoning her, but she didn’t really know.  In the length of time since the fire, since those long and agonizing days, spent in the burn unit, through the four reconstructive surgeries and all the time she’d spent, staring at the clinically clean walls of the hospital room for hours and days and weeks at a time, her mother had come to see her once that she remembered.  Her father hadn’t come, even once.

“ _Let me give you the name of a friend of mine.  He’s a psychiatrist.  Often, patients like you can feel a lot different than you thought you would, so I’d recommend, talking to him_.”

That’s what Dr. Izayoi—Kichiro—had said just after her last reconstructive surgery.  She’s thrown the little card away as soon as he’d walked out of the room.  She didn’t need a shrink.  That was ridiculous.  After all, she was thrilled, wasn’t she?  Absolutely thrilled to have finished the last of the skin grafts to replace the damaged flesh from the third degree burns she’d suffered when her bedroom caught on fire.

Striding out of the bathroom and stuffing the used towels into the bag, hanging from the cart handle, she gave the bedroom a critical once-over.  She’d already changed out the bedding, vacuumed, and dusted.  Satisfied with her work, she pushed the cart out of the room, stopping long enough to lock the door, before moving on to the next one to repeat the process again.

It was stupid, really, and so very optimistic . . . At the time, she’d honestly thought that she could start living again, that her life had been restored.  She’d thought that everything could go back to the way it was before that God-awful fire.  She’d thought . . .

But she had been wrong—incredibly wrong— _stupidly_ wrong.

Kichiro had told her that she’d have scarring for a while.  It was par for course with the surgeries she’d had to endure.  Those, he had assured her, would go away, given time.  She was youkai, after all, and her body would help her to heal.  He’d given her a few bottles of a special lotion that he claimed would help those scars fade a little faster.

And then, he’d walked away from her, had flown back to his life in Japan, and to Bellaniece, too.

She met a guy a few months later at a local bar in Bevelle.  She’d stopped in just to get a quick drink to unwind after work on a Friday night.  Pete had seen her across the room, had bought her a beer, and they’d hit it off.  They dated for a couple months—he was fun, after all, even if he was human—and she liked him well enough, even if she knew, deep down, that he wasn’t her mate.

They’d slept together on Valentine’s Day, which, looking back, was entirely cliché and corny, but it was dark enough in the room, and she hadn’t really considered it then.  In the morning, however, after her makeup had been rubbed away, when he’d gotten a good look at her naked body—at the scars that were still angry and red, the scars on her face that the makeup normally hid . . .

She saw his revulsion in his eyes, in every delineation in his expression.  He’d hurriedly gotten dressed, had mumbled something about calling her later, and she’d watched him leave, knowing, full-well, that he wasn’t going to call, and he wasn’t going to come back, either.  The guy she’d lost her virginity to, and he . . .

And yes, she’d blamed Belle, hadn’t she?  She’d told her that condoms would prevent accidental mating.  If she hadn’t known that, maybe it would have saved her from that awful little scenario.

Then again, maybe not.

It happened a couple more times before she gave up, and even when she was in the midst of being angry about it, she knew, and she couldn’t rightfully blame any of them for it.  Who in his right mind would want to date Frankenstein, anyway?

She’d stopped going out, stopped going to work, stopped going anywhere if she could possibly help it, and she’d smashed every last mirror in her apartment, too.

That was when she’d quit her job, had stopped paying rent, stopped caring about anything.  It got to the point where the very idea of leaving her apartment had left her in fits of near hyperventilation.  She’d drawn curtains, pulled blinds, avoided anything that would make her leave her security, and when she did have to venture forth, she always did so in the dead of night, and she always wore clothes that covered her from head to toe, no matter what the temperature was.

She hadn’t realized, had she?  At the time, she’d thought that having the reconstructive surgeries done would make her life normal again.  It hadn’t occurred to her that the scars that traversed her body, that the itchiness that often erupted, deep under the skin, would be so hard to deal with.  Because she was burned so badly over so much of her body, Kichiro had to use a new type of ‘skin’, created by the cultivation of stem cells in a process that she didn’t really understand, but the resulting layer was semi-permanent, he’d said, and, eventually, her own skin would meld with it.  Unfortunately, though, because she was youkai, he wasn’t able to completely close the wounds and had to use a different method to affix the new skin, and the end result had been scarring that was so much worse than a human would have to deal with after a traditional skin graft.

He had no idea, just how long it would take for the residual scarring to heal.  Really, it depended upon her own youkai’s response to the grafts, and the result was the hideous network of scarring.  For weeks after the grafts, she’d had to wear what was best described as full body socks that were designed to hold the new skin in place as her body assimilated it enough to keep it in place.  When she’d said something about the itchiness that kept her awake, sometimes for days at a time, Belle told her that Kichiro had said that it was a good sign; that it meant that the skin was merging with her own as it grew and developed . . . All in all, it wasn’t really that much of a consolation, not when she just wanted to rip herself out of her own flesh, literally.

In the end, she supposed, that she just couldn’t deal with the idea of trying to be herself, not when she couldn’t even recognize the person that stared back at her in the mirror.  The things that she might well have done in the past weren’t a part of her anymore, and seeing that stranger was hard enough, but when she realized that she couldn’t even reconcile her own thoughts as really belonging to her?

All she’d known is that it was a strange and welcome sense of peace that had come over her as she’d settled herself in a corner next to the window in the back of the Greyhound bus.  She’d watched through the windows, hidden under the hood of a misshapen old sweatshirt as a family gathered, crying, laughing, wishing a girl—their daughter?  Sister?—well before they parted.  There was no fanfare with her departure, no family to bid her goodbye, to tell her to be safe, to be strong, and that was fine, too.  Somehow, she just needed to do this, to find a place to start over, to create herself once more, even if she had no real inkling as to how to do it . . .

 

* * *

 

 

“I don’t know where she is.  Why are you looking for her?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Cartham frowned at the diminutive ermine-youkai woman, Helen Hendricks.  Pushing her golden hair out of her face with the back of her hand and holding it there since the breeze had picked up earlier this morning, she didn’t look particularly alarmed or surprised by the idea that he was there, asking questions about her daughter’s whereabouts. No, if anything, she looked rather irritated . . .

“I’m here on orders from the Zelig,” he explained in a low growl that was neither friendly nor was it unkind.  As far as he could tell, Kelly’s father wasn’t home.  Maybe he’d already left for work for the day.  It didn’t matter, really.  After all, he’d just stopped by on the off chance that they had an idea where he ought to look for Kelly, in the first place.

“The Zelig?” she echoed, her eyes widening in alarm.  “What did that fool girl do this time?” she demanded, deep brown eyes, narrowing as her youki crackled around her.

“To my knowledge, she didn’t do anything,” Cartham admitted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the clink of the metal chains that hung from his leather jacket, embellishing his movements.

She digested that, but she didn’t look like she believed him completely as she smoothed the nondescript white sweater over her hips in a decidedly nervous kind of way.  “He’s not . . . There hasn’t been a hunt or something issued for her, has there?”

“Nope,” he replied. “Zelig just wants me to check on her.”

Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest, seemed to kind of collapse against the door frame where she stood, and he could sense her relief, even if her expression didn’t show it.  “Like I said, I don’t have any idea where she is,” she finally said, though her tone had lost much of the brusqueness that was there before.  “She just up and took off . . . Left her father and me to clean out her apartment, too—left everything behind in a goddamn mess—every dish, dirty, all of her clothing, unwashed, just tossed around the place . . . She didn’t have much, but still . . .” She sighed, rubbed her forehead in an infinitely weary kind of way.  “Classic Kelly: always leaving behind her messes for everyone else to sort out . . .”

“So, you’d have no idea, where she’d be,” Cartham concluded.  “Would you mind if I took a look at the things she left behind?”

Mrs. Hendricks offered a little grunt and flicked a hand toward the attached garage.  “Sure.  The boxes are in there.”

He gave a curt nod and turned to step off the porch of the modest but neat little house.  “Is the garage unlocked?”

“Yeah, should be,” she replied.  “I’ve got to get ready for work, so go ahead and lock it up when you’re done, please.”

He nodded to indicate that he had heard her, wasting no time as he strode down the sidewalk and grabbed the handle on the garage door, giving it a firm turn.

The inside of the garage, just like the rest of the outside of the property, was neat and clean.  There were a couple metal shelves on the far wall with plastic bins of varying sizes along with a few drawer blocks, arranged upon them.  On the opposite wall near an older but clean chest freezer were three neatly stacked boxes, and in neat print of black permanent marker, each one was labeled, ‘Kelly’.

It didn’t take long for him to look through two of them, running the claw of his index finger neatly through the tape that held them closed.  The first one contained nothing but clothing and a couple towels, a pair of sheets, and all of it had been washed and neatly folded and smelled of detergent and fabric softener.  A pair of old but clean tennis shoes, a few odd toiletries, all carefully wrapped in plastic Ziploc baggies and taped closed . . .

The second box held a few kitchen items: a skillet, a pot, two plates, two bowls, a couple glasses, and a bundle of silverware, also all meticulously clean and wrapped to prevent breakage . . . a couple paperback books, some kitchen towels, a small wooden plaque with, ‘ _Always add a pinch of love to everything you bake_ ,’ painted on it . . .

The third box contained the odds and ends: some CDs, a discman . . . a remote for the very small television that was wrapped in an old blanket behind the boxes, a few more dog-eared books, a few blankets, some things—knickknacks, maybe—wrapped in newspaper.

There was nothing there to give him even the smallest hint as to where she’d gone, and he scowled, reaching for the books to repack into the box.

And then, he stopped.  Narrowing his eyes as he looked closer at one of the pages of newspaper that had been wrapped around something for packing, he noticed that something was circled in blue ink, and he lifted the item to get a better look.  The page was dated a couple weeks ago, but the phone number, circled on the ad—no more than a very small blurb in the classifieds, caught his attention and held it.  ‘ _Spring specials.  Call for prices.  Nationwide stops_ ,’ and a phone number—the local bus station, it said.

Was that what she’d done?  Hopped on a bus and got out of town?  It wasn’t a sure thing, by any means, but it was the closest thing to a lead that he’d found.

He was just packing things back into the box when the door from the house opened, when Kelly’s mother stepped outside.  She’d changed into her work clothes, he supposed—a pair of light brown slacks and a nondescript white, button-down shirt . . . a thin, gold chain around her slender throat, a touch of lip gloss, a hint of mascara—and when she saw him, she sighed and, after a moment of silent deliberation, she squared her shoulders, crossed her arms over her chest, her purse, pushed back behind her elbow, and she slowly approached him.  “Did you find anything?” she asked, and, despite the guarded tone in her voice, he didn’t miss the underlying anxiety she was trying to hide.

“Maybe,” he replied.  “She circled an ad for the bus station.”

Her mother sighed.  “You going there?  See if you can’t find her?”

“That’s what I’ve been told to do,” he said.  “Do you have family somewhere?  Someone she’d want to go see?”

The look she shot him was inscrutable, unreadable, and she hurried across the garage to retrieve a roll of packing tape out of a plastic tub on the shelf.  “Not really.  Our families aren’t really close . . .”

Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, but he kept his opinion to himself as he watched her retape the boxes once more.  She said nothing as she worked, as she returned the tape back to the bin where she’d found it.  It was hard to tell if she was just one of those compulsively neat people or if it had more to do with underlying things that she hadn’t given voice to.

Digging into her purse, she pulled a picture out of a plastic sleeve in her wallet, staring at it for a long moment before handing it over.  “It’s . . . It’s an older picture,” she said, her tone, somewhat apologetic.  “No one ever got a picture of her after her reconstruction surgeries.  I mean, I tried once, but she . . .” Trailing off, she quickly shook her head, seemed to dismiss whatever it was that she had started to say.  “I mean, she doesn’t look that different—well, some, sure, but . . . Her hair color’s the same, and so is her eye color . . .”

Cartham shook his head and didn’t take it from her.  “Cain gave me one to go on,” he explained.

“I see,” she said, sparing a moment to stare at the image once more before slipping it back into the sleeve in her wallet once more.  “Of course, he did.  That makes sense . . .”

“Can you tell me more about her?  Kelly?  Zelig just gave me a brief overview, but even then, you’re her mama, so . . .?”

“Can’t say I know much more about her than anyone else,” Helen said.  “From the moment she could, she was trying to run away from us, and the older she got, the less she talked to us, anyway.  I don’t really know when she stopped wanting to . . . to be my little girl,” she admitted quietly.   “She doesn’t return phone calls or texts.  She never asked for help with her bills.  I mean, even if Ford didn’t want to help her, I . . . Well, I guess she figured he’d lecture her or tell her it was her problem.”

“All right,” he concluded since he wasn’t really getting much information that he could use.  “Thanks for your time.”

She sighed again.  “Look, it’s not like I don’t care about her.  I do.  I’m her mother.  But she . . . Well, she takes after me, I guess.  Too stubborn, you know?  And then, she’s like her father, too—to unwilling to ask for help, and then, she gets ideas in her head, and she doesn’t let them go, even if they’re nothing but trouble.  She’s never wanted to listen to me when I’ve tried to tell her that she shouldn’t do certain things.  She’s always had to learn it all the hard way, and one day, it’s going to be her undoing . . . My husband . . .” She winced, rubbed her arms, her cheeks, pinking as she slowly shook her head.  “He said that he’s done with her, that if she wants to fail, that she might as well learn how to pick herself up again.  He . . . He loves her, too.  It’s just . . .”

Trailing off, she gave a rather helpless little shrug, like she couldn’t quite figure out, how to put it all into words.  In the end, she heaved a frustrated sigh, shook her head.  “She won’t call us if you find her,” she predicted, letting go of her prior train of thought.  “Just . . . If you do?  Could you . . .?”

Cartham stared at her for a long, long moment, but finally, he nodded.  “I’ll let you know.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_A/N_** :  
>  _Here’s the first chapter of the short I want to write.  I will update it when I feel like it, but feedback would be GREATLY appreciated.  God bless_!
> 
>  
> 
>  ** _Cacophony_** _: harsh discordance of sound; dissonance_.
> 
> **_== == == == == == == == == ==_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _A new start_ …  
>  **_==========_**


	2. Shadows

Stepping out of the hotel just off the strip, Cartham frowned at the glaring brightness of the neon lights that glowed in the distance.  Already, he could feel the tension that grew behind his eyes, resulting in a deep throbbing in his brain.  Big cities never were his thing, which tended to be a bit of a double-edged sword, given that, in his line of business, he tended to end up in areas that were either entirely overpopulated or crazily empty.

He sighed, affecting the normal trace-scowl that he tended to wear most often as he stepped onto the sidewalk.

Tracking Kelly here to Las Vegas was easy enough.  All he’d had to do was to go down to the local bus station in Bevelle.  It just so happened that the girl who had sold Kelly a ticket had known her from school.  They weren’t friends, per se, or so the girl had claimed, but of course, everyone knew who Kelly and Belle were, though, from what she’d said, no one had understood, just why Belle was friends with a troublemaker like Kelly Hendricks.  After making a little small talk, though, she’d mentioned that Kelly had hopped a bus to Sin City.  Cartham, whose tolerance for busses just wasn’t high, had opted instead to book a flight later that afternoon.  Ordinarily, he might well have chosen to ride cross-country instead, but, given the sense of urgency in Cain’s request, he figured it’d be best to fly.

At least he was staying in a decent hotel this time around.  Normally when out on a job, he opted to stay in seedier places that would keep him well under the radar.  Since there was no real reason for him to hide his presence here, though, he’d opted to stay somewhere a little better, even if he’d rather avoid the super fancy places.  Cain wouldn’t bat an eye if he had, but Cartham knew, too, that his presence tended to make the upper-crust folks that frequented such places more than a little uncomfortable since he looked more like a biker and less like a productive member of their society.

Besides, he was about as far from fussy as anyone could be, and, sure, maybe he could appreciate the finer things in life, but he couldn’t say he craved those things, either.  To him, the chase for such things was tedious, at best, and outright pointless, at worst—probably why his home back in Maine, when he bothered to be there, that was, was a fairly modest affair.  In fact, the only thing he’d splurged on when he’d bought the old property years ago was the state-of-the-art security system that he’d commissioned a fellow hunter, Moe Jamison to install, but that was entirely for practical reasons.  At this point in his career, he’d gained an unwanted level of notoriety, and, with that, came a certain unease.  There were a number of youkai who might like to see a hunter of his caliber, brought low.

But his actual home on his thirty-eight acres of backhills Maine property was little more than a three-room log cabin.  The initial thought when he’d purchased the land was that he could one day build something nice, probably closer to the ocean on the other side of the property.  After living in the cabin for a few years, though, the thought of building something else faded from his mind.  He was comfortable there, and that was good enough, especially when he was rarely home for more than a few weeks at a time, if that . . .

Letting out a deep breath, Cartham brushed aside the thoughts that just didn’t matter.  The main problem he had now was that, after a week of scouring the streets so far, he honestly had no real idea, where to find her.  At least when he was out on a regular hunt, he had a rough idea, where to start, even if it was just the seedier side of town—dive bars or even drug dens.  This time, he was flying blind.  Sure, it made sense to start in the same types of areas, to a point, but there was no reason to believe that she had any kind of issues with illegal substances.  The thing was, he also knew that she hadn’t had much in the way of money when she’d taken off, so just where would she have found to stay?

The only thing that he could really consider was that maybe she’d stayed at a shelter or something.  He’d already been to all of them that were close to the bus station where she had arrived.  Unfortunately, in a city the size of Las Vegas, there were a lot of those shelters, and he’d really only scratched the surface, so to speak.  Even then, he had to wonder.  After all, they did keep records of the people who wandered through their doors, but that really didn’t mean much, especially if Kelly had opted to use an alias.  Too many faces to remember any one in particular, and, to be honest, her coloring wasn’t all that remarkable, either, given that light brown hair and deep, emerald eyes were not exactly an exotic combination.

Still . . .

Digging the slightly-dog-eared photo out of the inner pocket of the leather jacket, Cartham didn’t stop walking as he stared at the image.  It was taken after her final reconstructive surgery, after her bandages were removed, after the swelling had gone down—a stock photo for her hospital file.  He didn’t know how Cain had managed to get his hands on it, but Cartham was thankful that he had.  Though she still bore a striking similarity to the picture that Helen Hendricks had showed him, she did look remarkably different, and those differences didn’t have a lot to do with the scarring that he could make out easily in the picture.  One ran just under her nose, tucked away in the natural contours, but another ran pretty nearly the entire area around her face.  He could make it out well enough under the downy, light brown, nearly blonde, hair that had grown back, but then, he’d kind of looked for it.  If it weren’t for the rather strange way that the skin of her face seemed to be a little mottled, a little off from a face’s normal shades, he might not have found it to be odd at all.

Cain had mentioned that the girl’s coloring should take on a more normal shade as time passed, as the skin merged with her own, as it slowly bonded to create a new layer of skin entirely.  He’d also said that the scars that were left behind due to the inability to actually stitch the skin together would eventually fade, too.  Despite that knowledge, Cartham had to wonder if what he was seeing in that image didn’t account for at least part of Kelly’s desire to escape, to start over . . .

She was a pretty girl—well, no, that wasn’t quite right.  She was beautiful, wasn’t she?  Even after the surgeries, she retained a certain refinement in her features that brought to mind her mother’s face.  As far as he could tell, the biggest difference between before and after was really her nose, which was a little narrower, a little more pixie-ish than it used to be.  Her eyes were slightly wider, sloping just a little more sharply at the edges, but what struck him the most was the blankness in her gaze, a hollowness that bespoke a marked lack of emotions, as though her feelings were somehow blunted.

It was an expression that he knew well enough.  He’d seen it in himself too many times to count.  Back in those days, he’d tried to find things that could fill that painful void, and he’d done so in the worst possible ways.  Did she still look like that, he wondered.  And if she did . . .

“ _Look, it’s not like I don’t care about her.  I do.  I’m her mother.  But she . . . Well, she takes after me, I guess.  Too stubborn, you know?  And then, she’s like her father, too—to unwilling to ask for help, and then, she gets ideas in her head, and she doesn’t let them go, even if they’re nothing but trouble.  She’s never wanted to listen to me when I’ve tried to tell her that she shouldn’t do certain things.  She’s always had to learn it all the hard way, and one day, it’s going to be her undoing . . . My husband . . . He said that he’s done with her, that if she wants to fail, that she might as well learn how to pick herself up again.  He . . . He loves her, too.  It’s just_ . . .”

They loved her, sure, but they didn’t understand her.  Or maybe it was the idea of the child they’d given life to that they loved because, after talking to Helen, he had to wonder if they knew much of anything about Kelly.  Maybe her unwillingness to bend to their perceptions of what their daughter ought to be had precluded their ability to see her as she was, and there was no one on earth who could ever live up to the perfection in their minds, which left Kelly with no chance in hell of ever living up to those expectations.

At least, that’s how it seemed to him.

‘ _It doesn’t matter, though, does it?  I’m just supposed to find her, to make sure that she’s all right.  It’s not my job to try to play counselor between the family._ ’

As if that were even possible, anyway.  Cartham was about as far from a peacemaker as he could be.

Letting out a deep breath, he tucked the photo away again as his determination seemed to solidify in his mind.  He’d find her.  He just hoped it was sooner rather than later . . .

 

* * *

 

 

Kelly stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the Hill Chapel Homeless Shelter, hitching her backpack over her shoulder, very aware that she carried more money than she had had in a long while.  Most of it was folded neatly, tucked under the insole of her left shoe while she had seven dollars and eighty-five cents in her pocket.  She wanted to open a bank account, but that wasn’t possible yet.  Without a permanent address, no one would allow her to do so yet.

Three weeks’ worth of work so far, and, after another couple weeks, she might have enough to at least start looking for an apartment, if she could find something fairly cheap.  The real problem was that the shelter only allowed people to stay for four weeks, which meant that she was running out of time, and she’d either have to try to find lodging at another shelter or she’d have to figure something else out.

It never ceased to amaze her, though, just how inconspicuous even she was here.  She supposed that it must simply be the difference between a big city and a small town.  No one stopped, stared at her here because no one cared about her story, and that was fine with her.  Even the four women she shared a room with at the shelter were still strangers.  She knew two of their names: Bethany and Tara, and only because they were friends and talked quite a bit.  Aside from the intake worker who had written down the information she’d given, she hadn’t actually talked to anyone else, either.

They left her alone, and she stayed to herself.  She had no long-term plan.  It was enough for her to be lost in the bustle of the city that never slept.

And maybe it was good for her, too.  Given that she wanted nothing more than to remain invisible, the absolute anonymity was nice, welcome.

‘ _Just a little longer,_ ’ she thought as she crossed the street, heading for the nearby news stand—one of the few in the area that actually sold real publications.  Once a week, she splurged and bought the weekend edition, both for the more extensive classified ads as she familiarized herself with the average costs of dwellings in the area as well as for the coupons in the many fliers.  She’d never messed with such things before, but every little bit counted, as far as she was concerned, so if she could get a tube of toothpaste for half of what she might normally have to pay or any other basic toiletries, then messing with those bits of paper were definitely worth it to her.

Besides, she only allowed herself to spend less than twenty bucks a week.  The shelter provided breakfast and dinner, and, while they weren’t necessarily the tastiest meals, they were free, and that was good enough, and she never ate much.  More often than not, she ended up, giving one of the children in the shelter the rest of her meals—a few extra packets of saltines or an extra hard-boiled egg when she was given two of them.  Those youngsters needed the energy from the food far more than she did, and she’d already adjusted to eating very little when she had no money at all back in Maine, so it wasn’t a big deal, anyway.

Biting her lip as she stepped out of the news stand with her paper under her arm, she bought a small can of apple juice from a nearby vending machine—her one and only splurge every week—and set off for the park as she tucked both things into the garish orange backpack she’d bought out of her first paycheck from the second-hand store near the shelter.  It was only three dollars, and all of her things fit in it, including her single change of clothing—also purchased at the second-hand store—and really, that was all she cared about.

It was a six-block walk to the nearest park—well, kind of a park.  She supposed that it was more of a public square than an actual park.  There wasn’t any play equipment for children, just one large fountain in the middle with a number of wooden and wrought iron benches, scattered around, some shaded by trees, others, basking in the sunshine . . . All in all, it was a nice place to spend her one day off a week, reading the newspaper and generally just doing nothing.

It was a nice feeling, blending into the moving crowd, feeling completely unremarkable, even as she frowned at the ugly scar that ran up the side of her hand, up along her wrist, only to disappear under the oversized light jacket she never really took off.  She’d learned fast that Las Vegas was too warm for the hoodie she’d worn on the bus that fateful day, but she just couldn’t bring herself to let her body show, couldn’t stand to see those ugly scars every time she looked in the mirror.

“ _Mostly second and third degree burns over roughly sixty-five, maybe seventy percent of her body . . . At this point, it’s really touch and go . . . If she weren’t what she is . . . Well, we’ll just have to wait and see_ . . .”

“ _I . . . I see . . . Can I see her?_ ”

“ _We’re keeping her sedated right now, and, with the compromises to her skin, any kind of exposure to germs could be fatal.  Given the extent of her injuries, though, I can let you see her for a few minutes, but you’ll have to wear sterile gear_.”

“ _O . . .Okay_ . . .”

Brushing aside the lingering memory that was hazy enough in her mind that she often wondered if it was, in fact, a real memory or not, Kelly kept moving.  She didn’t remember any visit at that time, anyway, though that could have been because she’d fallen asleep again.  Either way, her first doctor—Dr. Gentry—was luckily a youkai, and he’d realized right away that Kelly was, too.  He was a kind man—she’d seen it in his eyes—even if he hadn’t really given her much information about her condition, about the severity of her burns.  She was seventeen then, so his important discussions had always been directed to her parents—the parents she only saw once that she remembered—her mother, anyway—even if that vague memory had included her mother’s voice.

Just the thought of those parents was enough to quell the semi-decent mood that she’d carried since she woke up this morning.  Knowing them, they were probably happy that she was gone, relieved that they had no idea, where she was.  The constant trouble that they viewed her existence as being was removed, and wasn’t that better for everyone?

‘ _Don’t you think you’re being a little bit harsh?_ ’

Snorting indelicately at her youkai-voice’s unwelcome question, Kelly stopped at a crosswalk, waiting with a handful of strangers for the light to change.  ‘ _I don’t think so, no.  I never fit into their perfect little world, anyway._ ’

Her youkai sighed, but didn’t argue with her.

A strange trill ran up her spine, the sudden sense of another youkai nearby.  She wasn’t sure why it unsettled her so much, given that she’d encountered a number of her kind since she’d arrived in Las Vegas.  Something about the foreign youki seemed almost probing, searching . . . and underneath that was a definite air of something unsettling, like a warning or an alarm.  She didn’t know why, but she did increase her gait as she crossed the street, pulling in her own youki, trying to blend into the moving throng a little more, even as she slipped her hand into one of the deep pockets of her jacket, wrapping her fingers around the cool metal of the closed butterfly knife she carried everywhere . . .

 

* * *

 

 

He spotted her through the crowd, frowning as he watched her duck into a small newsstand.  After being told that he’d just missed her at the Hill Chapel Homeless Shelter, it was pure, dumb luck that he’d found her, but even if he hadn’t, at least he’d found out where she was.

Her scent wasn’t that far off of that of her mother’s—an entirely sweet smell, like the air just after a good, solid rain.  In nature, that scent would fade within minutes, usually didn’t linger longer than maybe half an hour, but there was an underlying hint that reminded him of freshly cut hay that was left to dry in the afternoon sunshine.  He wasn’t exactly great with words, but if he had to try to describe it, he would have said it was a golden-brown smell, akin to the aroma of freshly milled wheat.

Scowling at the almost fanciful lilt of his own thoughts, he followed along behind her, but he didn’t try to catch up with her, either.  Something about the efficacy in her steps intrigued him, damned if it didn’t, and for reasons he didn’t really quite grasp, he was interested in seeing, just where she was going, instead.

The shelter manager who had told him that he’d just missed her had mentioned that she had gotten a job at a nearby hotel, cleaning rooms between guests, but she hadn’t known whether or not Kelly was supposed to work today.

The buzz of his cell phone drew his attention, and he pulled it out of his pocket, answering it without bothering to look at the caller ID.  It was one of the many prepaid ones that Cain kept around and issued to his hunters whenever he sent them out on a job, and that meant that it had to be the tai-youkai since he was the only person with this particular number.

“Yeah.”

“Cartham . . . How’s it going?”

Slowing his gait but keeping an eye ahead on the very short ermine-youkai, he frowned thoughtfully.  “Found her,” he said.  “I haven’t approached her yet, though.  She looks pretty good, but she’s living at a homeless shelter.  Got a job at a hotel, cleaning rooms.”

Cain let out a deep breath.  “A shelter?” he repeated.  “Unacceptable.  Take her and find her a decent place to live.  I’ll put more money on your card, enough to cover her deposit and a few months’ rent, up front.”

Cartham uttered a terse grunt.  He’d figured Cain would do something like that.  “You think she wants your help?”

This time, Cain grunted, and Cartham heard the distinct _snick-snick_ of his lighter.  “Non-negotiable,” he replied stubbornly.  “If she wants to live there, that’s fine, but she’s going to be safe.  That’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah, all right,” Cartham allowed.  “It’s your money.”

Cain sighed.  “So . . . How does she look?”

Cartham considered what kind of answer Cain was after.  Hanging back when she stopped at a cross walk, he regarded her with a critical eye before giving a mental shrug.  “All right, I guess,” he said.  “A little on the skinny side, but she doesn’t look bad.”

“Good,” Cain muttered, letting out a deep breath.  “Give me a call later, after you’ve talked to her.”

“Aiyuh,” he breathed, frowning as she suddenly drew her youki in, as she hurried her step into the street with the rest of the crowd that had been waiting for the light to change.  He dropped the phone into his pocket, quickening his gait, just enough to keep from losing her in the commotion.

She must have sensed him, but she seemed almost panicked.  She suddenly ducked into an alley between a large and almost ramshackle four-story building with a bookstore on the ground level and a twenty-four-hour fast cash.

He followed her, slowing his gait in an effort to calm her down, purposefully taking on a more casual gait, allowing his youki to ebb and flow in a natural and more relaxed way than he typically permitted himself.  It didn’t seem to do a thing to reassure her.  In the confines of the dirty alley, he could feel even more of her anxiety, though he had a feeling that she was trying to mask it.

Letting a loud gasp slip from her, she suddenly whipped around, the flash of light, blinking at him just as the soft clink and snap of metal registered in his ears.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” she demanded, eyes taking on an independent kind of glow as she brandished the six-inch butterfly blade before herself.  To her credit, her voice gave away nothing of the trepidation that he could still feel, radiating from her in jagged waves.

Eyes narrowing as he strode toward her, giving up the pretense of trying not to alarm her, he snorted.  The sound echoed off the walls.  “Put that up before you hurt yourself,” he told her in a roughened growl.

Her grip on the knife tightened, attesting to the idea that she really had no idea at all, just what she was doing with that weapon.  She was too stiff, too unnerved, even if she wanted, she’d never actually be able to fend off anyone, much less him.  “What do you want?” she repeated, trying her damndest to sound at least slightly intimidating.

“Relax,” he told her, stopping just a couple feet away from her as he crossed his arms over his chest and peered down at her.  He’d realized when he’d seen her that she was just a tiny thing.  Standing so close to her, however, she seemed even smaller somehow . . . “The Zelig sent me to find you.”

It was apparent to him that she hadn’t expected that at all, and she blinked and shook her head, but she didn’t relax her stance.  “Belle’s dad . . .?  Why?”

“He’s worried about you,” Cartham pointed out in a tone that implied that she really should have known that already.

She started to open her mouth, but her eyes suddenly widened in alarm, and she uttered a terse little growl that was just not even remotely threatening, not to him.  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?  I don’t know you, and you haven’t even told me who you are.  For all I know, you’re just some random skunk, out to try to rob me or something.  Go away.  I’m not afraid of you.”

Rolling his eyes, he reached out to yank the knife out of her hands.  She yelped, recoiling slightly as she squeezed her eyes closed and swung the blade, and despite his reflexes, she caught the back of his hand.  He gritted his teeth, rolling his fingers to latch onto the weapon and jerking it out of her grip with ridiculous ease.  “I’m not a skunk,” he growled, ignoring the slight sting from the shallow cut.

“H-Hey!  Give that back!” she demanded, ignoring his counter, reaching for the knife, only to growl in irritated frustration when he lazily gave it a little flip to close it, then lifted it, holding it up in the air over his head and effectively out of her reach.  For a moment, he thought she just might start jumping to try to reach it, but she glared daggers at him instead, planting her hands on her hips as she tried her best to smite him on the spot.

“I’ll give it back if you’re done threatening me with it,” he told her in a clipped and even tone.

“You’re getting your blood all over it,” she complained haughtily despite the trace flush that blossomed under her skin.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to try harder than that to hurt me, brat,” he growled.  “Now, stop it and calm down.  The name’s Cartham.  I’m one of Zelig’s hunters.”

She snorted indelicately, straightening her back, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Not a good one, then.  I sensed you back there—and why would he send you after me if you’re one of his hunters?  Are you here to kill me or something?”

He sighed, rapidly nearing the very end of his patience.  “Hardly.  I already told you, I’m just here to check on you, to make sure you’re all right.”

She made a face.  “Well, as you can see, I’m just fine, so you can go away now—after you give me back my knife.”

Cartham grunted as he dropped said-knife into his pocket and gave his hand a shake, sending a slight spray of blood, flying through the air.  “Yeah, not happening until you learn how to use it,” he growled.

“I—”

“You don’t,” he informed her as he reached out and grabbed her arm with his good hand.  “Now, come on.”

“Where do you think you’re taking me?  I’ll . . . I’ll scream.”

“Do it, and I swear to God, I’ll toss you over my shoulder—just try me.”

She snapped her mouth closed on her rebuttal, and she did move of her own accord.  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded once more, careful to keep her voice lowered as he escorted her back out of the alley once more.

He snorted.  “Where else?  To get you something to eat.  You look like you could use a few . . . hundred . . . good meals.”

To his surprise and relief, she didn’t respond to that, but when he glanced down at her, he stifled a sigh as she stared at the ground, as she seemed to retreat into herself.

“Look, I’m not the enemy,” he told her.  “Let’s get you a decent meal, and we’ll talk.”

She didn’t seem to want to go along with him.  If anything, she retreated into herself just a little more, but she did move, which, he supposed, was concession enough.

He stifled a sigh, figured he might as well try to do something to try to put her at ease, even if he figured that it wasn’t really possible.  “Like I said, the name’s Cartham.  I’ve worked for Zelig for a long, long time, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Cartham?” she echoed, her tone, giving away her still-simmering irritation.  “Cartham, what?”

“What do you mean, Cartham, what?  Just Cartham.”

She snorted indelicately.  “Yeah, okay, Just-Cartham.  What’s your last name—and what kind of first name is that, anyway?”

He grunted.  “It _is_ my last name,” he told her.  “It’s what I go by.”

She blinked, and, to his surprise, she turned and stared at him, but she did keep walking.  “Oh, so, what you’re saying is that your parents nailed you in the name department,” she concluded with a very curt nod.  “What’d they do?  Name you something goofy like Gary?”

“No.”

“Terry?”

He grunted again.  “No.”

“Jerry?”

“No—not even close.”

“Stan?”

“Can we just—?”

“Is it girly?  Like Carey?”

He growled.  “No.”

“Patty?”

“No.”

“Jesse?”

“No, now, drop it,” he rumbled.

She made a face, but she did let it go, which, in Cartham’s estimation, was good enough—until she spoke again, that was.  “You know, I don’t think I can trust that you really are who you say you are or that you work for who you say you do if you refuse to even answer a basic question,” she pointed out.

He rolled his eyes.  “Nice try, missy. Now pick a restaurant or I will.”

Her only answer was that stony silence, and Cartham smothered a sigh.  He had a feeling that it was going to be a long, long day . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So, until further notice, I think I shall opt to update this story on weekends (Saturday and Sunday).  This should hopefully give me the time to get this story done in a timely fashion (it’s a short, so it will likely be between 20 – 30 chapters).  I hope you enjoy the story, and, as always, reviews are welcome_!
> 
> **_== == == == == == == == == ==_ **
> 
> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _He sent a_ hunter _after me_ …?


	3. Chasing

Cartham sat back, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Kelly push the food on her plate around, barely eating anything and speaking even less.

He’d brought her to his hotel, to the small but very nice restaurant on the ground floor.  As they’d waited for their orders, he’d fired a text off to Zelig, letting him know that he had Kelly with him and that he’d see what he could do about finding her more permanent lodging, which would be a hell of a lot easier if Kelly would speak.

Interesting, wasn’t it?  She was staying at a shelter, and yet, she’d taken the time to perfectly apply her makeup before she left, but she did tell him that she didn’t have to work today, so, there was that . . .

‘ _It’s not really that surprising, y’know,_ ’ his youkai-voice said.

‘ _How’s that?_ ’

The voice sighed.  ‘ _Think about it.  It’s the easiest way to cover those scars, don’t you think?_ ’

He hadn’t thought of that.  Then again, he supposed that it was normal enough, not to, given that makeup wasn’t really his thing.

That didn’t really matter, though, and the reality was that he needed to get her moving because Cain had forwarded him a list of apartments in the area near the shelter, so, hopefully, near where she worked.  He’d also gone to the trouble of making appointments for her to see the apartments, and the first one was in about forty minutes.

“You going to eat that or just keep mashing it up?” he muttered, loudly enough for her to hear him, not loud enough for his voice to carry.

She shot him an inscrutable look without lifting her chin.  Eyes smoky, dark, she blinked a couple of times before she finally sat back and pushed the plate away.  “I don’t want anything from him,” she said, scrunching up her shoulders as she grabbed her backpack and wrapped her arms around it.  “Besides, he doesn’t have a reason to bother with me.”

Rolling his eyes, Cartham retrieved a pack of Doublemint gum and tore it open.  “Well, he doesn’t agree,” he replied.

The look she gave him was caught up somewhere between puzzled and defiant—an odd mix, really, but somehow, it fit her.  “I’m not his kid; I’m not his concern.  I came here to get away from everyone and everything.  I don’t need anything that I can’t do on my own.”

Idly scratching his temple, Cartham gave a careless shrug.  “Cute speech,” he told her.  “You know that won’t wash with him.  Now, get moving, will you?  He’s lined up some apartments for you to look at, and I can’t leave here till you’re safely settled in somewhere.”

She started to open her mouth to protest.  He was faster as he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table as he leveled a no-nonsense scowl at her.  “Look, I’m humoring you right now, but I don’t have a hell of a lot of patience, Kelly.  Whether you like it or not isn’t my problem.  I’m not here to fix you.  I’m here because Zelig’s worried about you, and if he’s spending all his time, worrying about you, then he’s not worrying about the important shit, like keeping rogue youkai under control, so, even if you don’t like it, deal with it.  It’s about more than just you.”

Her eyes narrowed on him despite the color that filtered into her cheeks.  “Why don’t you just go away?” she ground out, grabbing her backpack and scooting out of the booth.  “Leave me alone.”

Some part of him actually expected her to bolt, and he wasn’t really surprised when she did.  Dropping a few rumpled bills onto the table, he took off after her.

It didn’t take long for him to catch up to her, either.  She wasn’t running, and maybe she had banked on the idea that he wouldn’t cause a scene in public; he didn’t know.

‘ _Ridiculous woman . . . As if I don’t have better things to do with my time than to chase after a girl with no damn common sense . . ._ ’

‘ _Oh, come off it, Cartham.  You know as well as I do that if it were you, you wouldn’t want anyone’s help, either—especially not your best friend’s rich daddy_.’

‘ _Yeah, well, she doesn’t have a damn choice, now does she?_ ’

His youkai-voice didn’t argue with that.

Grasping her arm firmly but not cruelly, he felt her try to yank herself away, but he held on.  “Give up, missy.  If you haven’t noticed, I’m a hella lot bigger ‘n you.”

She sighed, but he felt it more than heard it.  “Listen, Cartham, isn’t it?  Can’t you just tell him that . . . that you lost me or something?  I’m fine, right?  You’ve seen for yourself.  Tell him I don’t need his help.”

He let out a deep breath.  It wasn’t a sigh, but it was full of exasperation, given that the girl wasn’t going to make his job easy, and didn’t that just figure?  “It doesn’t work like that,” he told her, steering her around the corner.  They were only a couple blocks from the first apartment on the list, and that was where he was taking her, whether she liked it or not.  “He watched you grow up, didn’t he?  Just like his own daughter.  Didn’t you spend as much time over there as you did at your own place?”

“Maybe more,” she muttered, almost as though she just didn’t want to admit as much.

“You know, maybe you should be thankful that he cares about you.  Ever think about that?”

She shot him a scathing glower, and this time, she managed to jerk her arm out of his grip, crossing them over her chest as she assumed a very stubborn gait.  “Should I drop to my knees?  Praise him like he’s some sort of god or something?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he growled in kind.  “I think you know that much.”

“Actually, I _don’t_ know what you meant,” she countered.  “I don’t know _you_.  At all.”

Rubbing his forehead as he struggled to figure out, just how to reason with the woman, he dug down deeper for a ration of patience that he sorely needed, but when he opened his mouth to speak again, he shot her a quick glance, only to watch with a thoughtful frown as she untangled her right arm, leaving her left one, wrapped over her stomach, to rub at her right hip.  Something about it struck him as odd, and he knew damn well that she hadn’t meant for him to see it, either.  She was hurting, wasn’t she?  A lingering effect of her burns or maybe even the surgeries she’d endured to repair the damage, maybe . . .?

And something about that hit him down deep.  It wasn’t pity that he felt, no, but he’d be lying if he were to try to say that he didn’t feel some kind of sadness on her behalf.  Given what he’d seen himself when it came to her family—her parents—was it any wonder that she would refuse to give voice to any kind of discomfort?  Because he knew, too, didn’t he, that it didn’t matter how well he did or didn’t know her, she wouldn’t say as much to him . . . or to anyone.

The thing was, she was right.  He didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him.  Sending him out here to find her, to make sure she was in a safe place, that she had what she needed to remain that way?

Cartham was starting to think that it was possibly the biggest mistake Zelig had ever made . . .

 

* * *

 

 

“All right.  Out with it.  What’s wrong with this one?”

Shifting her eyes to the side without moving her head, Kelly wasn’t surprised to see that Cartham was standing there, all nearly-six-and-a-half-feet of him, thickly-muscled arms, crossed over his broad chest, black eyebrows, drawn together in a marked frown, but looking rather bored, otherwise, as he waited for her to find some fatal flaw with this apartment, just like she had, the last four of them.

The landlord—a middle-aged guy named Neil with thinning brown hair and the start of a beer belly—had let them in before excusing himself since he had another potential tenant coming to look at the apartment across the hall.  He’d said he’d be right back, but that was about ten minutes ago, and he had yet to poke his face back in again.

The first one had thin walls, she’d said, even though she hadn’t really heard the next-door neighbor, thumping around, as she’d claimed.  The second one’s floor felt entirely uneven—also not true, but good enough, in her estimation.  The third one smelled like a dead body, which was a bit of a stretch, given that it really hadn’t smelled that bad, aside from a kind of stale sort of odor that was more reminiscent of a place that hadn’t been lived in for a month or so and would go away after a thorough scrubbing.  The fourth one?  Well, that one really did have a real flaw.  It was entirely too close to the highway, and the sounds of traffic were very distracting.

‘ _You’re being ridiculous, you realize.  Besides, do you honestly think that he’s going to go away if you don’t pick a place and just deal with it?_ ’

‘ _I don’t want his help, remember? I’ll find a place of my own soon enough.  I don’t need anyone’s . . . charity . . ._ ’

‘ _Except you’re not going to get a choice.  Cain sent him here to make sure that you’re all right, and he’s already said that he’s not leaving till he knows you’re in a decent apartment and are taken care of.  So, just play along, can’t you?  The sooner you do, the sooner he’ll get lost.  Kelly?_ ’

‘ _What?_ ’

‘ _. . . Do we want him to get lost . . .?_ ’

That, in her opinion, didn’t deserve an answer, and she made a face at her own capricious thoughts, resolving not to listen to any more of her youkai-voice’s annoying observations for the moment.

This place wasn’t too that bad; not really.  Small, yes, but only a block from the hotel where she worked and close to a small grocery store as well as above a drug store where she’d bought a few toiletries on her way home from work.  It was even a few blocks closer to the park where she liked to go on her days off.  Not really big enough for more than one person, but that was all right, and the rent wasn’t bad, either.  There was only one problem that she could see, but that problem . . .

“No,” she stated flatly.

She could feel his gaze narrow on her, but didn’t turn to verify it.  She didn’t need to.  She could feel the intensity of his stare, boring into her back.  “No,” he repeated, stifling the urge to sigh.  “What’s wrong with this one?”

She snorted before she could stop herself, stomping across the empty living room to yank back the thick, beige curtain that hung over one of the two windows.  “That’s what’s wrong,” she insisted, waving a hand at the glass.

He blinked and glanced at the window before the sigh he’d held in check slipped out.  “What’s wrong with that?” he asked in a defeated sort of tone.

Rolling her eyes, Kelly shook her head.  “There are two—two—windows in this place,” she informed him in a tone that indicated that he ought to have realized what the problem was, all on his own.  “Both of them face that building, right there.  Staring at nothing but a brick wall, all day, every day?  Would you be all right with that?”

For a moment, she thought that he was going to argue with her on principle.  In the end, though, he slowly nodded since she had a very good point.  The windows of the place faced the alley between this building and the one beside it with little more than an eight-foot alley between them, and she was quite correct: the only thing she could see out of either of the windows was the ugly, weathered brick wall across the way.

Even so, for some reason, she couldn’t help the trace hint of guilt that ate at her—had been eating at her as she summarily dismissed every apartment they’d looked at.  “It wouldn’t be terrible if there was at least a little sunshine,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead in a weary kind of way.

“You’re right,” he concluded, turning around and heading toward the door.  “Let me go find that guy.  I’ll tell him you’re not interested.”

She watched Cartham go, biting her lip as she tried to ignore the feeling that she was little more than a burden to everyone who knew her.

Wasn’t that why she’d gotten on that bus?  All she’d wanted—the only thing she’d wanted—was to find a place where she could blend in, where she could start over—where people didn’t know her story, didn’t stare and whisper while casting her looks of pity, of scorn, of overwhelming horror . . .

She sighed, rubbing her arms as she paced a few steps, waiting for Cartham to return.  For a fleeting moment, she considered, slipping out of the building, but as soon as the idea occurred to her, she discarded it.  He was a hunter, after all, and that meant that tracking people down was a prerequisite.  Even if she did manage to get away, it wouldn’t really take long for him to find her.

‘ _Are you sure that’s the only reason you’re not trying to disappear?_ ’

Blinking at the strange question, she shook her head.  ‘ _What’s that supposed to mean?  What other reason would there be?_ ’

‘ _What reason, indeed?  Or haven’t you noticed, just how hot that man is?_ ’

‘ _Wh—I—You—H-He_ —’

Her youkai-voice laughed indulgently.  ‘ _Bluster all you want, but you did notice, and before you try to argue the point, remember: I don’t know anything that you don’t know, which means you undeniably did, even if you want to try to say you didn’t_.’

‘ _That made absolutely no sense at all_ ,’ she growled, unable to staunch the heated flush that exploded under her skin.

‘ _I think it’s those eyes . . . At first, I thought that they were black or nearly black, but they’re not, did you notice?  They’re violet_ —violet.  _I’ve never really seen anyone with eyes that color before_.’

Pressing her palms—they were strangely cold—against her burning cheeks, Kelly quickly shook her head—and tried _not_ to think about the color of Cartham’s eyes and the fact that, when he stared at her, she felt the most curious sense of, well, _something_ . . .

‘ _He’s strong, too, and big, but not so big that he’s scary . . . Did you notice the way his arms just kind of bulge just so, even when he’s not flexing them?  Now_ , that’s _power_ . . .’

Grinding her teeth together so tightly that they seemed to groan under the stress, she tried to will the blush away, but perversely, she could feel it growing stronger, instead.

‘ _And maybe you didn’t notice, but he fills out his jeans quite well, too.  You really ought to check him out, you know._ ’

‘ _Okay, that’s enough_ ,’ she blurted as her late sense of self-preservation kicked in.  ‘ _Just . . . Just drop it, will you?  I . . . I don’t care what he looks like.  He’s only here on orders.  It’s not like he cares or anything.  I just met him, and_ —’

‘ _Well, of course, we don’t know him yet.  Don’t you think that it might be interesting to get to know him, though?_ ’

Wincing as the fleeting image of the disgust on Pete’s face shot through her head, she sighed.  It was akin to a dousing of cold water, and it effectively put an abrupt end to her wayward thoughts.  ‘ _No, I don’t_ ,’ she shot back in a more pragmatic tone that was definitely closer to her own usual voice.

Her youkai-voice sighed.  ‘ _All right, but you’re running out of places to hide.  You like it here, right?  So, would it be that bad to accept Cain’s help?  Just to get settled?  Just to get that brand-new start you wanted?_ ’

She frowned stubbornly, since the voice had led her right back to Square One.  ‘ _There’s no such thing as help.  There’s always strings attached.  I don’t feel like having that lorded over my head forever_.’

‘ _But you know Cain better than that.  He’s not the type to do any such thing.  When’s he ever done that to Belle?  He’s never done that to you, either.  All those times, growing up, when Belle would ask him to take you both into Bevelle for ice cream or to go to the store . . . He’s never been that way_.’

Which meant nothing; not really.  All her life, she’d lived it.  Her parents had always been quick to remind her, just how much things cost them: the yearly school fees, the school field trips . . . the couple vacations she’d gone on with Cain and Belle . . . Everything had cost money, and, as she grew older, there were the fines and costs of the things she’d gotten in trouble for . . . All of those things had come with the incessant reminders of just how much money she’d cost her parents.

“ _Money doesn’t grow on trees, Kelly Anne . . . Your father had to work overtime to pay your court costs and probation fees . . . The least you can do is try to act a little sorry for causing so much trouble . . . Are you even listening to me?_ ”

If she’d heard those words once, she’d heard them more times than she could count over the years, and now?  Now, she’d be damned if she was going to let anyone say things like that to her again, even if that meant that she had to sleep in a homeless shelter for a while longer . . .

 

* * *

 

 

“And she didn’t like any of them.”

Cartham let out a deep breath, leaning back against the wall in the hallway just outside of the hotel room.  As far as he knew, Kelly was watching some television show, but she hadn’t said much more than a couple words since they’d returned here after the fiasco of apartment hunting.   “Not one,” he admitted.  “She did say, though, that she won’t take your money.  Probably why she came up with excuses why none of them were any good.”

Cain sighed.  “I figured it’d be something like that.  Can you find a way to convince her?”

“Dunno, Zelig.  I mean, she’s fine—maybe a little scrawny, but otherwise okay.  She’s working; says she’s got some money saved up already.  Stubborn as hell, is what she is.  I don’t think there’s any convincing her, if you want my honest opinion.”

“Maybe if I fly out . . .”

“I doubt that’s a good idea,” Cartham muttered, dragging his long fingers through his shoulder-length mess of hair, pushing his bangs out of his face, only for them to fall back into place again.  “I don’t know why, but she . . . she seems almost . . . pissed off at you.”

“At me?  Why?”

Cartham grunted.  “No idea.  She doesn’t say much.”

Cain sighed.  “It doesn’t make sense.  I talked to Belle again, and she said that she thought everything was fine, even though Kelly seemed a little distant lately . . . Do you . . .?  Do you think you can get her to talk to you?  Find out what’s going on with her?”

“She said she just wants to start over . . . I don’t know if there’s more to it than that.”

“Yeah, but if you could get her to open up a little bit . . .”

“I’m no social worker, Zelig,” he replied.  “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.  I’m a hunter.  I don’t go around, trying to get people to talk to me.”

“I know,” Cain agreed.  “I just . . . There’s no one else I can send out there.  Larry’s out on a hunt that’s going to take a while, and Moe . . . Well, there’s no way Moe could get her to talk, not unless she was some kind of electronic device.  Of all my hunters, you’re the best at reading people.  That’s why I asked you, to start with.”

If it were anyone other than Cain Zelig, Cartham might well have thought that he was just trying to blow hot air up his ass.  Cain, however, was about as no-nonsense as they came; he knew that, and, even though he really didn’t hold out much hope that he really could get Kelly to talk, he had to try, for Cain’s sake, at least.

When he didn’t respond right away, Cain sighed—or maybe he was smoking.  With Cain, either of those things was entirely possible.  “You know, I think you should come on back.  I’ll fly out in the morning, get her to listen to me . . . She can’t stay in a shelter.  She’s got to know that, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.  I . . . I should have been the one to take care of this, in the first place.”

“Hold on,” Cartham said, unsure, just why he was saying it, in the first place.  “I may not know her very well, but I can tell that she’s just not going to break down and talk to you.  Stands to reason, anyway.  She ran off without telling anyone, including Bellaniece, her plans, right?  In fact, I’m pretty sure that you’re the last one she’ll talk to.  I’ll handle it.”

“Cartham . . .”

“Never failed you yet, have I?” he grumbled, gaze darkening as a stubborn light ignited in his eyes.  “Not about to start now.”

Cain hesitated before answering, and when he did, the underlying doubt was impossible to miss.  “All right,” he allowed in a strangely weary kind of way.  “How ever you have to do it.”

“Aiyuh,” he grunted.  Lowering the phone, he clicked the ‘end call’ button, sparing a moment to scowl at the device before dropping it into his pocket.

‘ _Nice speech, Cartham.  So, any idea how you’re going to get her to agree?_ ’

He rubbed his forehead before crossing his arms over his chest, staring blankly at the far wall without really seeing it.  That really was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?  All he had to do was to figure out, just how to get the obstinate woman to listen to him . . . and to agree to accept the help that was offered . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Game on, Kelly.  Game on_.


	4. Enemies

Kelly dropped the remote control and shot Cartham a surreptitious glance, only to frown, momentarily forgetting that she was trying to ignore the man as she turned to watch while he quickly and efficiently tore down a handgun that she hadn’t realized he had.

He’d taken off his jacket when he’d finally let himself back into the hotel room, and she’d noticed then that he wore a leather shoulder holster not unlike the kind that some actors wore in those silly detective dramas in the movies and on television.

It had surprised her, but she’d refused to ask any questions then.  Now, however, watching as he cleaned and oiled the firearm, she slowly shook her head.  A gun?  She thought that youkai were above using such things.  Then again, she really couldn’t say, given that she hadn’t actually had the opportunity to find out any such thing, but Belle had mentioned before that even Kichiro had a sword . . . “You’re a hunter, aren’t you?” she heard herself asking before she could stop herself.

He grunted something unintelligible, but it sounded like a positive response, and he didn’t look up from what he was doing, either.

“Is that why you’re—quote, end-quote—good at your job,” she went on, unable to keep the hint of derision out of her voice.

“Points for trying to offend me,” he mumbled in an almost preoccupied kind of way.  “You’ll have to try harder, though.”

“Do all of his hunters use guns?”

“Nope.  None of us do,” he replied simply.

“Oh?”

He gave a little shrug, but didn’t look up from his task. “I carry one, yes.  Do I use it?  Never have—yet.  Well, never have on a job, nope . . . I do practice with them, though.  Damn good shot, if I do say so myself.  Besides, there are some youkai who aren’t exactly honorable, and on the off chance that I run into one of them?  I believe in being prepared.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes as she snatched up the remote control once more.  “You’re so noble,” she muttered sarcastically.  “While you’re being so noble, how about you let me leave without chasing me down?”

“So you can go back to that homeless shelter?  Those places aren’t safe,” he informed her in a tone that indicated that she ought to know that much already.

“It’s safe enough,” she countered.

“No, they’re not,” he stated.  “Just because no one’s bugged you yet doesn’t mean that they’ll leave you alone forever.  Tomorrow, we’re going to find you an apartment, and we’re going to get you settled in.”

She made a face, but he missed it since he was still more interested in his gun than he was in her.  “Tomorrow, I’m going to work, and after that, I’m going back to the shelter, and—”

“Okay, then I’ll pick out your apartment while you’re working, but I’m not promising it’ll meet your high standards.”

“I’m not living somewhere that I didn’t pick out myself,” she gritted out, her irritation, rising fast.

He finally looked up at her, but the expression on his face was inscrutable.  He looked like he was caught up, somewhere between boredom and all-out irritation with a strange kind of near-amusement, tossed in for good measure.  “Suit yourself,” he told her, sounding just a little too agreeable to credit.  “Then I guess I’ll give Zelig a call in the morning—tell him that you’d rather that he flies out to get you settled.”

“You wouldn’t,” she grumbled, narrowing her eyes as an indignant flush exploded under her skin.

“If you don’t want to cooperate with me, that’s cool.  I’ll pack it in, head back to Maine, and Cain’ll take care of everything.  Your choice.”

Clamping her mouth closed on the retort that was fast forming, she jerked her head back toward the television and furiously clicked through the channels again.

It seemed like it took an inordinately long time for him to finish reassembling his gun, and she ground her teeth together as she tried to ignore the grating sounds of the weapon as he put it back together.

“So, I talked to your ma before I came out here,” Cartham said in an entirely too-conversational tone.  “Said she was worried about you.”

“Did she?” Kelly countered, unable to keep the bitterness out of her tone despite her best efforts to maintain a neutral tone.  The immediate and intense flare of outright indignation was harder to quell.  Worried about her?  She stifled an inward snort. More like she was concerned about what anyone else might think, wasn’t it?  After all, Helen Hendricks was damn good at pretending to be the downtrodden mother, now didn’t she?  She’d been doing it for years . . . “Did she tell you what a disappointment I am, too?”

Cartham let out a deep breath and stood up, clicking the safety on the weapon before replacing it in the holster that he then hung on a hook on the wall beside his jacket.  “Seemed pretty concerned about you,” he went on, opting to ignore the underlying hostility in her words.  “You want to give her a call?”

“You know, that’s really none of your business,” she snapped, unwilling to discuss her relationship with her parents with a virtual stranger, especially a stranger who had forced himself into her life, in the first place.  Bad enough that he was willing to sink low enough to use Cain Zelig as a not-so-subtle threat, but to drag her parents into it, too?

In fact, the more she stewed it over, the more irritated it made her.  If he thought that her parents were the fairy tale type, he was sorely mistaken.  More than once over the course of her life, she’d wondered just why they’d bothered to have her, in the first place.  She wasn’t the child that they’d ever doted upon, and even if they’d had the money to do such a thing, she knew damn well that they wouldn’t have.  She had one friend growing up who was about as poor as they came, and yet, her parents had always done their best to give her their attention, their very obvious affection.  Trips to the free beach about half an hour away, lots of trips to the city park . . . Sleepovers with a trip to the dollar store for cheap snacks and television recordings of lots of cartoons and movies . . . Sheila’s mom and dad, when he wasn’t working at a local factory, would push the rather threadbare furniture in the living room back and use chairs and tables to build blanket forts, camping out with the girls . . . She remembered a lot of laughter during those moments, and Kelly had been so jealous of that.  Even now, she still thought about Sheila, who had moved away when she was seven.

“You’re right,” he admitted, but he didn’t sound at all sorry for the perceived faux pas.  “She seemed pretty concerned about you, though.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not,” Kelly gritted out, flicking off the television and dropping the remote before flopping down in the bed on her side, facing away from him and yanking the blankets up over her head.

She heard Cartham sigh, but he didn’t try to stop her.  He did turn off all of the lights except for the one beside his bed, and she heard the springs groan as he stretched out.

The silence the filled the room was deafening, ringing in her ears in a nearly-painful way.

‘ _You know, she might really be worried about you.  Just because you don’t see eye-to-eye with your parents doesn’t mean that they don’t think about you._ ’

Kelly squeezed her eyes closed a little tighter.  It wasn’t the first time that her youkai-voice had tried to soften her opinion about her parents, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last, either.  It didn’t matter, not when she knew deep down, just how little they had ever really cared, unless she was in trouble, that was.  When she got in trouble for this or that over the years, they’d been upset enough, and then, they’d scream and holler and tell her, just how put upon they really were.

But they’d perfected the whole act where they’d look good to the public.  From parent-teacher conferences in school to dragging her to church every Sunday morning and evening, and it all looked so nice on the outside, didn’t it?

‘ _It wasn’t what they did to you; it’s what they never did for you, Kel.  Your mom and dad have never been demonstrative people.  It wasn’t within their abilities to give affection without a reason, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t love you._ ’

She didn’t know what to think about that, either.  Besides, was it really her responsibility to make excuses for them?  Why did a child have to try to rationalize their own parents’ inability to connect?  It wasn’t so much that they were bad parents, really, but they were indifferent, and that was painful in its own way.

And it was all stuff that she couldn’t rightfully explain to anyone, let alone, to herself.  When she did try to put it into terms that were easier to understand, it only made her angry.  When she did things the way they wanted—their version of the ‘right’ way—they said nothing, just left her alone.  When she messed up?  Oh, she certainly heard about it all then.

There was a lifetime of instances that didn’t seem that significant until they were all lumped in together.  From scraped knees that went ignored because her father said that she was, ‘too old to carry on like that’, to the times she was caught, breaking curfew and things like that and the hours-long lectures that she’d been made to endure . . . There were so many things that seemed so petty, and maybe anyone else would think that she was just making a mountain out of a molehill, she didn’t know.

But explaining all of it to someone like Cartham . . .? No, she couldn’t do it—didn’t want to do it.  There was no good way to describe it all without sounding needy or worse, pitiful, and Kelly . . . Well, she’d be damned if she’d allow that, ever . . .

 

* * *

 

 

Stepping out of the hotel with a heavy sigh, Kelly braced her hands against the small of her back and stretched with a grimace.  She’d had to clean twenty rooms, and she’d hurried through them since she was paid the same, regardless of how much time it took to do them.  Once she finished her daily cleanings of the rooms assigned to her, she could leave for the day, which was great on most days.  Today, however, it seemed like the rooms in her charge required more effort than usual, and despite trying to be as thorough and as fast as possible, it had taken her just over nine hours to complete them all.

She stifled a groan when she spotted Cartham, striding toward her.  It was too much to hope that he’d forget about her.  Bad enough that he was already wide-awake when she woke up this morning.  Then he’d walked her to work, much to her chagrin.  She had no idea what he’d done while she was working, either, but the few times she’d looked outside, she hadn’t seen him.  It didn’t mean he hadn’t been waiting around for her.  Even so . . .

“Zelig set up some more appointments,” he said, skipping the pleasantries as he reached over and neatly plucked her backpack out of her grasp, slinging it over his shoulder casually and completely ignoring the low growl that she uttered.  “One’s not far from here, and we’re a little late.”

“I can carry my own bag,” she muttered, trying to tug the bag back without having much luck in the doing.

“You look exhausted,” he countered evenly as he adjusted the bag and kept walking.  “Anyway, this place might be all right, but Cain was a little iffy about the building’s security, so if you want it, I’ll see what I can do about getting a better system installed.”

“Didn’t we already discuss this?” she muttered.  “Never mind, I _know_ we did.  I told you, I don’t want his help.  I don’t want anything at all from him, and I sure as hell am not going to be beholden to him, either.  I’m saving up money, and I’ll get a place as soon as I can, so I—”

“And I told you, I can’t leave here till you’re settled into something safe.  Look, if it’s Zelig’s involvement that you object to, then I’ll loan you the scratch.  Whatever works.”

“Why would you do that?” she demanded sharply as he guided her across the busy street and toward an apartment building between a couple small shops.

He rolled his eyes, the heels of his boots, thudding heavily against the pavement.  “To get you the hell outta my hair.  Why else?” he shot back.

She snapped her mouth closed as an uncomfortable flush exploded in her skin.  “I don’t _need_ anyone’s charity,” she bit out, balling her hands into fists as she crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly.

He sighed, dragging his long fingers through his hair, his exasperation, very clear.  “No one’s offering you char—Okay, Zelig could be considered charity.  It’s a reach, but all right,” he allowed.  “I’m not, though.  It’s a loan.  You’ll pay me back.”

“Why?” she snapped.  “So you can lord it over me every chance you get?”

That stopped him in his tracks, and he turned to eye her in a completely chagrined kind of way.  “So I can _what?_ ” he growled.

Common sense told her that she was treading on dangerous ground.  She didn’t really know anything about him, but something about her accusation had hit him hard.  Even so, it didn’t stop her.  In truth, it _couldn’t_ stop her.  A lifetime of memories, of being reminded, time and again, just how much she owed this person or that person for every tiny bit of help she’d ever received, especially by her parents, had taught her the lesson so very well.

“I won’t be your puppet,” she spat, stepping back, trying to put some space between him and herself.  “Owe you money so you can yank my strings, tell me what I owe you, what I need to do because you were _nice_ enough to help me?  Go fuck yourself, Cartham, and tell Cain Zelig—tell my so-called family—that I don’t need anyone— _anyone!_ ”

Then she wheeled around and broke into a dead sprint, unsure where she was going, only knowing that she had to get away from him, yet knowing deep down that it was a futile effort.  In the end, it wouldn’t matter, would it?  No matter how far she ran, where she ended up, he’d find her, wouldn’t he?  A hunter, for the love of God . . . A hunter that ran on the long leash of Cain Zelig . . .

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _What the fuck . . .?_ ’

Standing in complete shock for a long moment, watching in mild disbelief at both Kelly’s unleashing of her temper as well as her unscripted and unceremonious escape.  Sure, he’d realized early on that she really did possess that kind of volatile nature.  It was more of the venom that she’d spewed that had taken him entirely by surprise, the speed with which she’d exploded.

“ _Owe you money so you can yank my strings, tell me what I owe you, what I need to do because you were_ nice _enough to help me?  Go fuck yourself, Cartham, and tell Cain Zelig—tell my so-called family—that I don’t need anyone_ —anyone!”

Something about her words . . .

‘ _Worry about that later, Cartham.  You need to go find her.  In her current state of mind, there’s really no telling, just what she’ll do, and if she manages to hop on a bus or something, you’re going to spend another God knows how long, having to track her down again, and next time, it won’t be nearly as easy as it was this time._ ’

That thought got him moving, and he uttered a terse grunt as he took off after her.

Darting down a nearby alley, he leapt onto the building, opting to gain an upper view of the area as he followed her very noticeable trail.  From what he could tell, she didn’t seem to have any real destination, seemed to be running blind.

He really didn’t know why his offer to help her had set her off.  To him, it had been clear that she simply hadn’t wanted help from Cain for whatever reason, so he’d offered the next logical thing, and somehow, it had been even worse, hadn’t it?

‘ _No, it makes sense, if you stop and think about it.  If her parents are the type to, as she put it, lord it over her whenever they’ve helped her before, then maybe it’s what she expects.  If someone did that to you, especially someone who ought to try to help you if they can, simply because they_ are _your parents, then you might feel the same way, too.  Just think about it.  What if Ben or worse, Rhen had treated you that way?  If you remember, that’s why you hated being at your uncle’s place . . ._ ’

His frown deepened.  That . . . was true.  After his parents had died, when he’d had no choice but to go live with his uncle . . . It had been exactly that way, hadn’t it?

Behave because they’d deigned to take him in, because they were spending their money, such as it was, to take care of him, another mouth to feed, another back to clothe . . . He remembered those lectures well enough.  He remembered the whuppings he got when he broke their rules until he grew too big for those to work on him, anyway . . . He remembered . . .

It was a whole different world back then, and growing up wasn’t the same as it was these days.  His uncle-by-marriage likely believed that it was what Cartham needed, and yet, he also couldn’t recall ever hearing a comforting word, couldn’t recall being on the receiving end of a compassionate gesture . . . Arlan Dode either couldn’t or wouldn’t know how to do such a thing, and Caroline Cartham Dode?  Well, she never, ever spoke against her mate, either . . .

So, he’d been told over and over to be grateful that he had a roof over his head, that he had food on the table and clothes on his back, especially when he’d hit an almost unnatural growth spurt at the age of eleven, maybe twelve . . . That’s when he’d outgrown Arlan, when he’d refused to allow his uncle to punish him in that kind of way.

Kelly might not have been born into the same kind of home, but maybe in the end, it was.  He didn’t know either side of it well enough to make any kind of judgement call, but what did it matter if that’s how Kelly perceived it?  No, all he had to do was to figure out, just how to get her to listen, how to get her to agree to accept the help that she very obviously needed, but first, he had to find her . . .

It only took a couple blocks for him to spot her.  Sitting on a bench on the edge of an open area, a park, in the loosest sense of the word, that was more of an open, grassy field with a large water fountain in the center, some straight sidewalks that all converged around the fountain, a few wood and iron benches, scattered here and there along those paths . . .

He dropped off the building into another alley and strode across the street.  If Kelly sensed his approach, she didn’t give any indication, and when he finally closed in on her, he shrugged off her backpack and dropped it onto the bench beside her.

She said nothing, but she did reach over, yank her bag into her lap, wrapping her arms around it, holding it against her chest protectively, her shoulders, slumping forward, almost as though she were protecting it with her entire body, and, given that it contained everything she owned, he figured he could understand that.

“Okay, let’s talk,” he said, rounding the bench and sitting beside her.  “First off, if you think I’ve got the damn time to bug you about money you borrowed from me, you’re wrong,” he told her, purposefully inflicting enough nonchalance into his tone to hopefully keep her from bolting before she gave him a chance to diffuse the situation.

He could tell from the way her back stiffened, even though she didn’t sit up or really move otherwise, that he had pretty well hit the proverbial nail on the head, but at least she seemed willing to listen, so that had to mean something.  He sighed.  “Just pay me back within, say, a year—maybe two.  Guess it would depend upon how much I lend you.  Fair?”

She snorted.  “Why?  Why do you want to help me at all?”

“Everyone needs help sometimes,” he replied almost philosophically.

Again, she snorted.  “Yeah, well, you look like you’re two steps away from a homeless shelter yourself,” she shot back.  “Those jeans look like they’re ready for the trash.”

To her surprise, and maybe to his own, he chuckled.  It wasn’t a sound that he indulged in often.  “I’ve got money enough,” he told her.  “I suppose if I dressed like it, though, I’d kind of stand out in the places I tend to go for my job, don’t you think?”

She seemed to consider that for a moment.  Then, she shrugged.  “Every single person who’s ever, ‘helped me’ has only done it so that they can toss it in my face later, like, ‘I did this for you, so, you owe me’.”

“I doubt Zelig’s ever done such a thing,” he countered mildly.  “His daughter, either, for that matter.”

The mention of Cain and Bellaniece was enough to get her hackles rising again.  He could feel it in the abrasive lash of her youki as it collided with his.  “Yeah, if Cain cared so damn much, why didn’t he ever show his face at the hospital?  Never, not once, and—” Cutting herself off abruptly, she drew a deep breath and stubbornly shook her head, refusing to finish her statement.

But it was enough for Cartham, and he drew his own conclusions from it.  It wasn’t so much that she resented Cain, per se, it was more that she really might feel abandoned by him, and maybe . . . maybe by Bellaniece on some level, too.

“All right, then,” he said instead, wisely opting to let the current thought alone, “you don’t want his help, and I get that.  You and your parents don’t seem to have a great relationship, and I got that, too.  As I see it, you have three options, and you’ve gotta take one of them because leaving you here in a homeless shelter isn’t one of them.  You can either let Zelig help you, and I know you don’t want that one.  You can come back to Bevelle with me because, again, a shelter is not an option.  Or you can accept my loan.  I’ll make sure you’re set up and safe and have what you need.  Fair?”

She finally turned her head to face him, her emerald eyes, churning in a turbulent kind of way.  “And just how would I pay you back?  You, beating on my door for payments?  Going to give me your address so I can mail them?  What?”

That gave him pause because honestly, neither of those options really had occurred to him.  “I don’t give out my address to anyone,” he told her.  “In my line of work, it’s never a good idea.  How about this: I hunt all over, and I hunt around here often enough.  If I’m in town for work, I’ll stop by, check on you—make sure you’re okay, that you don’t need anything.  If you have money for me, great.  If you don’t, then that’s fine, too.  I won’t ask you for it.  You’re a damn adult.  You can figure it out.”

At least, she seemed to be listening to him, and, more to the point, she seemed to actually be considering it.  “And . . . And you won’t lord it over me?”

He shrugged.  “I got better things to do with my time, Kel.  I thought I told you that already.”

The thoughtful expression on her face lingered for another long moment.  Suddenly, though, she shook her head.  “How do you know I’ll pay you back?  You don’t know me from Adam.”

Scratching his chin for a few seconds—he could use a shave, but that was nothing new—he shrugged again.  “Well, if you don’t pay me back within the agreed upon time limit, then I’ll just go to Zelig and have him reimburse me, and that’ll mean that you did let him help you, and, given how much you seem to hate that idea, then you won’t let that happen.”

She snapped her mouth closed so fast that he heard her teeth slam together, and he wasn’t surprised to see the almost-instant flush that blossomed in her cheeks, either.  “I . . . I don’t want to go back to Maine,” she muttered, shaking her head as her arms tightened around her bag once more.

He nodded slowly.  “All right, then . . . Do we have a deal?”

She stood up, paced the ground before them for a minute as she considered her options—or at least, the options he’d so eloquently laid out for her.  At this point, he’d laid his cards out on the table, and to be honest, he really didn’t know if she’d bite or not, and if she didn’t, he had no idea, just how to get her to agree.  He’d played his last and best hand, as it were.

Finally, she sighed, stopped right in front of him, a frown on her face.  The general distrust was still there, but, for the first time, she actually looked almost . . . almost hopeful . . . “O-Okay,” she said, her voice, cracking, faltering, attesting to just how much it cost her to make even that much of a concession.  “Okay . . .”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_MMorg  
> _** Mygrayhare
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_AO3  
> _** Bonnie Anton ——— Lovethedogs ——— minthegreen ——— Elizabeth ——— monsterkittie ——— WhisperingWolf
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _I feel like I’m selling my soul to the devil_.


	5. Truce

“ _She’s got a job, cleaning rooms at a hotel.  The apartment’s decent—a little on the small side, but well within her budget.  All in all, she’ll be fine_.”

 _Settling back in his chair, Cain slowly nodded, despite the thoughtful frown on his face.  “Good, good . . . Did you have enough on your expense card or do I owe you?_ ”

 _Shifting slightly in the sturdy chair facing the tai-youkai’s desk, Cartham shrugged.  “I didn’t charge anything,” he said, tossing the card onto the desk.  “Well, my hotel room, yeah, but nothing else_.”

 _Cain blinked, shifting his gaze from the card to Cartham’s face and back again.  “You didn’t?_ ”

“ _Turns out, she didn’t want your help,” he replied.  “Only accepted anything when I told her it’s a loan from me_.”

 _He looked confused, no doubt about it, and Cartham couldn’t really blame him.  “All right,” Cain drawled after a long moment.  “How much did you loan her, then?_ ”

 _Again, Cartham shook his head.  “_ I _loaned it to her,” he reiterated.  “Not you.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that you’re the very last person she wanted help from_.”

“ _Me?  Why?_ ”

 _Cartham shrugged as he dug the work prepaid cell phone out of his pocket and dropped it on the desk, too.  “I don’t know,” he admitted thoughtfully.  “But I think . . . I think she feels like you kind of left her hanging.  Mentioned that you didn’t go see her at all while she was in the hospital_.”

 _Cain flinched, dropping back with a heavy sigh.  “I did, but she was resting, and then, the doctors wanted to keep her exposure to a minimum since she had open skin wounds . . . But I should have . . . should have gone more often_ . . .”

Letting out a weary breath, Cartham swiped the key card, waiting impatiently for the soft beep when the lock released.  When it did, he slipped into the darkened hotel room, but he didn’t bother to turn the lights as he closed the door and flicked the lock.  Passing by the old vinyl recliner with the cracks in the seat fabric and the permanent indent in the center of the seat, he dropped his jacket onto it before plopping into the chair, leaning forward, letting his elbows rest on his spread knees, hands dangling limply between them, shoulders slumped.

It had been a long day.

Three days ago, Cain had briefed him on a rogue coyote-youkai who had been spotted in Las Vegas by one of Cain’s many informants.  Bert Shier had killed a number of humans in and around the area a number of years ago in apparent robberies to fuel his gambling habit, figuring it’d be easiest to off his victims instead of simply just taking their winnings after they’d left the casinos for the night.  He must have finally run out of money if he was willing to risk, resuming his crimes.

Cartham had caught up with him just before he’d managed to waylay another of his would-be victims.  He’d be silenced easily enough, but not before he’d managed to get in a couple lucky hits: one across Cartham’s chest, but those lacerations weren’t deep and were more annoying than anything, and one on his right arm.

The jacket, made of the treated skin of the Vasloges—a legendary creature that was closely related to the reptiles of old—had saved him from a more severe injury.  Cartham’s final task as an apprentice was to hunt down the beast and to retrieve the molted skin.  It had taken him the better part of a year to accomplish it, and, in the end, Rhen had fashioned it into the leather-looking jacket he wore now.  It might not be quite the same as having an entire outfit made out of the hides of the fire-rats, but it had never failed Cartham.  Bert Shier had torn the sleeve of it, but it was already mended, far faster than the torn skin of his arm, anyway.

He sighed.  The wounds would be closed up by morning, though they might remain a little tender for a day or so.  He really ought to go shower, let the lacerations soak and be cleaned out that way.  Damned if he wasn’t entirely exhausted, though.

It was the part of the job that he had never quite reconciled himself to.  He’d done it for the better part of nearly two centuries, and it never, ever went away: that sense complete emptiness that lingered, and maybe it was a part of his own coping mechanism.  The hollowness that led to the feeling of detachment . . . Maybe it was a necessary thing that his mind did, just to make sure he didn’t go completely mental.  There was no real way of knowing whether or not the other hunters felt this way, whether or not the whole thing was normal, but he suspected that maybe it was.  In a way, he figured that it was his mind’s way of coping with the atrocities that he committed in the name of the tai-youkai.  After all, killing was still killing, no matter what kind of light he tried to shine upon it, and, to be honest, he’d be more worried if it didn’t get to him every single time.  He didn’t know.

Ignoring the bone-deep weariness, he kicked off his boots and stood up, discarding his clothing as he headed for the bathroom.  It took several seconds for the water to warm, and even then, it wasn’t what he considered actually hot, lingering on the warmer side of tepid, at best.  He stood under the flow for a long time, just letting the water, rain down on him.

It helped a lot, blunting the edges of his numbed brain, allowing the slow intrusion of a more methodical line of thought to intervene.  The first thing he ought to do, he figured, was to fire off a text to Cain, let him know that the target had been silenced.  Normally, he’d do that directly after taking down the rogues, but, given that he wasn’t entirely sure that he could spare the time, he’d opted instead to get the hell out of there.  The alley was secluded enough, he’d figured, but nothing ever was completely safe, especially in larger cities.  A few years ago, closed circuit video had captured one of the newer hunters, taking down a target, and it had been quite a nightmare to clean up.  Cartham was fairly good about spotting cameras, but the way technology was moving, he could never say with one-hundred-percent certainty that he was ever really positive that he was safe from such things.

After texting the Zelig?

He made a face, finally reaching for the bar of soap.  After that, he’d sleep for the next day or so.  Normally, he’d book a flight home as soon as he could get one.  This time, however, Cain had also requested that he check in on Kelly again.  He could only hope that she’d be a little more receptive to him than she was the last time.

It’d been just over two months since he’d found her and helped her get the apartment, and even after getting back to his life, he hadn’t been able to get her off of his mind, either.  It was easy to say that he was simply worried about the little girl who was entirely too stubborn for her own good.  Every time he thought about it, though, he couldn’t help but to feel like leaving her here alone was a bad idea.  After all, Las Vegas was a world away from Bevelle, and that was where she’d grown up, the kind of life she knew.  Cities could be frightening places, and Kelly . . .

It was safe to say that a girl like her could easily get caught up in something she had no control over in a place like this.  Maybe, if she didn’t exude that sense of innocence—the one she tried to hide under her façade of street smarts and a healthy dose of sarcasm that she wore like a second skin.  He’d sensed it pretty quickly, had seen it in the depths of her eyes when she thought that she was covering it all up.  She tried to be tough, wanted so badly to be independent, and yet, there was an underlying vulnerability.  Oh, he had little doubt that she fooled most people.  Why was it that she didn’t fool him . . .?

It didn’t matter, anyway.  Even if Cain hadn’t asked him to check in on her, he would have because he’d be lying if he tried to say that something about her didn’t fascinate him.  He told himself that he simply wanted to know her story—all of it.  There wasn’t anything more to it than that, was there?  For now, he supposed, he’d leave it at that . . .

 

* * *

 

 

Shuffling into the small but bright kitchen in the quaint apartment that she called home, Kelly smothered a yawn with the back of her hand, ignoring the way her feet kept tugging slightly on the too-long bottoms of the thin cotton sleeping pants she kept stepping on.  Blinking in an almost awkward kind of way, she stuck the empty glass carafe under the running water tap to fill as she  dumped coffee grinds into the reusable filter.  The sound of the filling carafe reminded her uncomfortably that she hadn’t yet bothered to go pee, and by the time she dumped the water into the coffee maker, she was shifting quickly from foot to foot.

She hit the button to start the coffee before scuttling out of the kitchen and around the corner into the bathroom.  It didn’t take long to take care of her business, and she sighed, kicking off her pants and yanking off the long-sleeved but thin and stretchy tee-shirt for her shower.  She also studiously avoiding looking down at her own body for too long, adamantly refused to so much as glance at her reflection in the small mirror over the sink.  There was a longer, narrower mirror, hung on the back of the door, but she’d artfully covered it with a hanging towel that she never used but that seemed casual enough to not appear as though she were trying to block it.

She was off work for the next couple days.  Since her schedule rotated, she only got weekends off every other week, which meant that this week, her days off were Thursday and Friday, and that was fine with her.

She’d applied at a new casino that was opening near her apartment, and to her surprise, she got the job, working in the cage as a cashier.  She was making almost double what she was making as a room cleaner, and so far, she’d managed to save up just over five hundred dollars to pay Cartham back, which was a good chunk, given that it was only two months into the first year of the two year agreement that he’d stipulated for her to repay him the three-thousand-five-hundred bucks that she’d had to borrow from him to pay the deposit, a couple months’ rent in advance, along with the deposit on the electric and water and the few furnishings that he’d deemed necessary before he allowed her to call it good.

The only thing she didn’t particularly care for was the envelope she had stashed away with the money inside.  Since she really had no idea, just when he might come around, she’d decided that it was best to simply hide the money, but just knowing that she had any amount of cash on hand was enough to rattle her, even if she was relatively sure that it was safe enough where she’d hidden it.

Two months since he’d finally left her, and so far, he’d made good on his word.  She hadn’t heard a thing from him, which meant that he certainly wasn’t trying to rub her face in it.  The thing was . . .

‘ _You wish he would come around, don’t you?  You wish that he’d just show up._ ’

Snorting indelicately as she lathered her hair in the shower, she refused to respond to what she considered to be a ridiculous thought.

After he’d gone, after she’d had time to calm down, to think more objectively about the whole thing, she couldn’t help but to feel pretty bad about the way she’d treated the man.  He hadn’t been here because he wanted to be.  Cain had sent him, and she knew that, which had really only served to make her feel worse about the way she’d lashed out at him.  At the very least, she’d like to have a chance to apologize for that.

‘ _Okay, you were slightly bitchy, sure, but I don’t think he was too offended by it._ ’

Kelly grimaced.  ‘ _Offended enough to offer to loan me the money to get settled here.  He wanted to be shut of me, and who can blame him?_ ’  She sighed.  On one hand, she was all right with that.  On the other?

No, she wasn’t delusional enough to even try to convince herself that there was any other reason behind the unexpected offer.

Still . . .

‘ _Admit it: you’re fascinated by him because he’s so different from any of the guys you’ve met.  There’s something enigmatic, almost dangerous about him, and you . . . Well, you’ve always been a fan of the bad guy in the movies: the guy who has the broken and mysterious past.  What if he’s just a regular guy, though?  What if he’s not nearly as dark and elusive as you seem to want him to be?_ ’

She wasn’t too sure about that.  He was a hunter, wasn’t he?  That wasn’t the kind of job that someone just walked into, either.  Sure, she was aware that Kichiro Izayoi’s twin was a hunter, and he seemed to be pretty normal, but he was born into an extraordinary family, too, one rooted in the history of what would have been a time long past, but wasn’t nearly as long ago, given the tales that Belle had told her.  The fanciful tale of the priestess who had fallen through the strange well, only to find herself some five hundred years in the past was true, if everyone else was to be believed.  Kelly had wondered about it from time to time, but . . .

But that wasn’t really the point.  Shutting off the shower tap, she reached for a towel.

‘ _He really could have made the whole thing simpler if he’d just given me an address or something to send him payments,_ ’ she mused as she wrapped up her hair and yanked another towel off the rack.

‘ _Except he told you why.  If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  He doesn’t really know you very well, and he’s a hunter.  There has to be countless youkai who might like to get their hands on information like that, don’t you think?  Besides, if he had given you an address or something, then you would know that you’d never see him again, and you want to see him again._ ’

She bit her lip, wrapping the towel around herself, tucking the end in securely for her trek to her room to get dressed.  The bathroom was much too small to even try to dress there, and she scooped her pajamas together with her foot, hooking them all pretty deftly, and she reached down as she lifted the appendage to retrieve them easily enough.

It didn’t take long for her to deposit the clothes into the hamper and to don the long-sleeved blouse of a thin, off-white, crinkled cotton.  Ordinarily, ruffles and lace weren’t her thing, exactly, but most of her clothing was warmer than this, so it’d do.  The blouse, along with a pair of light tan leggings completed her ensemble, and she was leaning forward, applying the last of her makeup, when the knock sounded on her door.

Frowning as she grabbed a tissue from the box on her dresser, she hurried out of the room, rubbing her hands to clean them off, wondering just who would be beating on her door.  She didn’t really know anyone very well, had only kind of gotten a little friendlier with a girl named Lyza, who she worked with at the casino, but it was more of a work-buddy type thing and didn’t extend to after hours.

The youki she sensed, however, stopped her abruptly in her tracks, and the moment she recognized it, she felt the strange and almost dizzying flip-flop in her chest, her heart, suddenly driven into overdrive.  Her hands trembled as she fumbled with the deadbolt lock after she hit the key on the lock pad beside the door to release the security system.

It seemed like it took forever to get the locks open, but finally, blessedly, she opened the door.  “H . . . Hi,” she said, ignorant of the whispering, wavering quality in her voice as she held onto the door and stared up at him.

He cleared his throat, gave an offhanded shrug.  “Hey.”

 

* * *

 

 

Wrinkling his nose, he finished off the mug of coffee that Kelly had made for him before setting it aside and trying in vain to school his features before she actually saw his overall disdain for the subpar cup of brew he’d just choked down.

She blinked, setting her own mug aside.  Settling back in one of the two chairs situated at the very small table in the clean kitchen, she pursed her lips, as though deep in thought, and slowly shook her head.  “It was cheap,” she explained a little defensively, having caught the expression on his face that he hadn’t been very good at hiding.

Cartham grunted.  “You can cut corners on a lot of things, missy, but you shouldn’t ever skimp on quality coffee.”

“Missy?” she echoed, arching an eyebrow.

“That’s right.”  He jerked his head toward the empty mug.  “How can you drink that sludge?”

She rolled her eyes and picked up her mug again.  “It’s not that bad,” she countered, her voice echoing in the cup.

“Not bad?  I’ve had shitty diner coffee that tasted better than that,” he countered.  “It’s not even worthy of being called coffee.”

“You heard the part about it being cheap, right?” she muttered, voice still echoing since she was in the process of talking between swallows.

“What’d you do?  Buy it at the dollar store?”

“No,” she argued evenly, lowering the cup to the table, but keeping it in her hands.  “The five-and-dime . . .”

He snorted.  “I thought those went out of business a long time ago.”

She shrugged.  “Apparently not.  Anyway, it was only, like, three bucks for that big old can of it, so—"

“Aight,” he said, standing so abruptly that his chair scraped as it scooted across the floor.  “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” she said, sounding a little more amused than anything else.

He grunted, as though he figured she ought to know what he had in mind already.  “Where do you think?  We’re going to get you decent coffee because that shit _isn’t_.”

Kelly barked out an incredulous laugh, but she didn’t stand up.  “Stop picking on my coffee,” she told him.  “You’re a _guest_ here.  You should be gracious and _thank_ me for offering you a cup, in the first place.”

“And I would,” he replied, grasping her hand and tugging till she stood up, “if you had given me coffee and not a disgusting cup of dishwater.”

“Oh, my God!  You’re a hunter, aren’t you?  Do you travel with your own gourmet coffee everywhere you go?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted, which was true enough, especially if he was going to be gone for longer than just a few days at a time or if he was being sent to an area where he figured he wouldn’t find the kind of coffee that he wanted.

She stopped, stared at him as though she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around what he’d just said.  Then, she shook her head and rolled her eyes.  “You realize, don’t you?  That’s pretty sad.  I mean, aren’t you supposed to be a badass hunter?  But you can’t just suck it up and drink whatever coffee you’re given?”

He was having none of it as he waited while she pulled on her shoes.  “I’ve lived long enough to come to the understanding that you choose the things that matter to you, and what matters to me is the quality of the coffee I drink.”

He could tell from the way she pressed her lips together in a very thin line that she was trying really hard not to laugh in his face.  He refused to back down, though.  After all, he could deal with many, many things without complaint.  More than once, he’d ended up, camping out in the woods on hunts, stayed in the seediest hotels he could find, frequented the most unsavory establishments in the bitter dregs of the largest cities in the world.  Coffee, however, was the one thing that he simply wouldn’t negotiate.

She slowly shook her head, but her amusement hadn’t died away.  In the end, she straightened up, held up a hand with her index finger up straight before hurrying out of the room.  He wasn’t sure what she was after, but he tapped his foot impatiently.  After having subjected himself to her brand of coffee, he desperately needed to get something of better quality, and fast.

‘ _You know, it’s worse than that._ ’

Cartham scowled at his youkai-voice’s rueful assessment.  ‘ _How’s that?_ ’

The voice snorted.  ‘ _You saw her coffee maker, too—probably the cheapest one she could find at Dollar General—or a second-hand shop._ ’

Yeah, he’d seen it, and he didn’t really want to start another debate with her, especially over something like that, but those stupid, cheap things made even quality coffee taste bad.  Too bad a decent set up would cost even more, and, while he might not mind putting up the money for it, she would probably balk at it, perceiving that it would just add on to the amount that she already owed him . . .

Stifling the urge to sigh, Cartham rubbed his forehead, wondering just how irritated she’d be if he insisted that she get a real coffee machine, too . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _So … I totally forgot it was Saturday … lol_ …  
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Gross_.


	6. Settled In

Cartham opened his eyes and grimaced as his legs protested the cramped position that he’d assumed in the night on the rather small couch in Kelly’s living room.

He still wasn’t entirely sure, just how she’d talked him into staying with her.  He supposed it had something to do with the abject horror on her face when he’d stopped by the motel to grab the cell phone he’d purchased on his own plan for her.  He had opted to stay in a bare-bones kind of place that had rooms that were rented out by the hour on one end and by the week on the other with a window air conditioning unit, rattling noisily and sounding like it was ready to break down.

After she’d spotted the handful of cockroaches that scuttled off when he’d turned on the light, she’d said nothing, but she had marched over and grabbed his knapsack off the rickety old table and stomped back out of the room again.

When he’d joined her, she’d informed him in a tight and clipped tone that he was going to stay with her on her sofa—after he went through his bag and made sure that he wasn’t toting any unwanted ‘visitors’, that was.

He had, of course, pointed out that he could easily change his accommodations now that his objective had been met.  She’d snorted and shook her head, muttering under her breath that he could stay with her since she had no idea, how to work the coffee machine he’d bought for her—a housewarming gift, he’d said.  Even so, she still hadn’t wanted it once she’d spotted the three-hundred-dollar price tag.  Too bad he hadn’t given her a choice in the matter, citing that he wanted a decent cup of Joe whenever he happened to stop by, which had almost caused another disagreement since she wasn’t amused when he’d forked over nearly a hundred dollars on a five-pound bag of the good stuff.

When she’d reappeared so they could leave to get the coffee machine and the coffee that he’d found courtesy of Google at a small but very nice specialty shop a few blocks from Kelly’s apartment, she’d given him an envelope with five-hundred-thirty dollars in it with a very proud flourish.  He’d taken it and said nothing else, figuring that she likely didn’t want to make a fuss over it.  But he had asked her if she was sure, did she need any of it back for anything at all, and she stubbornly shook her head, true to form.

It was a little surprising to him that she’d accepted the cell phone easily enough.  Before she could start her normal protests, he’d told her that he’d gotten it for a couple hundred on his plan and that her part of the bill would only be forty-five dollars a month, that he’d add it to the amount that she’d already borrowed, but it was cheaper than setting up her own phone.  She’d taken it, and then, she’d harassed him for the next hour, taking random photos of him and applying filters that made him look pretty stupid.

But it amused her, so he let it go, with his only real caution being that she shouldn’t show his pictures to anyone, given what he did and who he was.  She nodded and flicked a hand in blatant dismissal, and he only sighed.

In fact, it wasn’t until last night that she’d discovered that he had programmed in his own cell number into the device, and she’d spent a good hour, sending him weird texts and memes from behind the closed door of her bedroom.

Maybe that was a mistake.

Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, he started to sit up—until the chime of his cell phone announced that Kelly—it had to be Kelly—had sent him another text, and he sighed, but smiled, groping the coffee table until he grasped it and picked it up.

It was a meme this time: a picture of the ridiculous animated skunk from _Bambi_ , complete with an idiotic flower tucked into its fur, and the caption?  ‘ _Daddy!_ ’ it said.

He snorted loudly and dropped the phone back onto the table as he hauled himself up with a grimace.  “Not even remotely funny,” he hollered, knowing damn well that she’d hear him.

The reward for his efforts was the entirely pleasant sound of her laughter, muffled by the closed door, and he grunted.

“And I’m _not_ a skunk.  I’m a pole-cat,” he growled back.

That laughter escalated, and he sighed again.

He stood and stretched, then lumbered off toward the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.  At home, he’d begin by roasting his beans, but Kelly really hadn’t been interested in that, so he’d bought the coffee that was already roasted—and ground, even though the coffee maker could do that, too.  She’d said that she wanted her coffee fast, didn’t like to wait around too long for it, so he’d bought the pre-ground stuff, despite the idea that he could feel some small part of him, dying just a little.

He’d just finished up when Kelly shuffled into the kitchen with the manual for the coffee machine in her hands and a scowl on her face.  “This thing is bigger than a _Chilton’s_ manual,” she muttered, holding onto the spine of the manual with one hand and flipping the pages with her other thumb.  “This is crazy . . .”

“Great coffee is well worth the effort,” he informed her, absently appreciating the fact that the girl actually knew what a _Chilton’s_ manual even was.  “Better learn how to do this because I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Hmm . . . In a hurry, are you?”

“Well, I do have a job,” he reminded her dryly.  “Besides, don’t you have to work tomorrow, anyway?  Hanging around here while you’re working?  No, thanks.”

She set the manual on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the cupboard as she leveled a thoughtful look at him.  “All right,” she finally said with a curt nod.  “I’ll take you out to lunch at one of my favorite places,” she offered.  “Really great food—and it’s really cheap.”

Cartham narrowed his eyes, pausing mid-reach as he started to pull two mugs from the cupboard.  “Those two words don’t go well together,” he informed her.

“What words?”

He grunted and resumed his retrieval of the mugs.  “Great and cheap,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes.  “Oh, my God, are you a food snob, too?”

“Nope.  I don’t mind fast food and stuff, but I’d hardly call it, ‘great’.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Or cheap, for that matter.  If you’re going to spend that much for fast food, you might as well find somewhere better, even if you have to pay a couple bucks extra.”

Cartham said nothing as he set the cups on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.  Finally, though, he sighed and shook his head.  “You’re not really selling me on this restaurant,” he told her.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Cartham,” she scolded.  “I don’t offer to buy lunch for just anybody.  Anyway, your coffee maker’s a dud.  Mine would been done by now.”

He snorted and jerked his head toward the table.  “Go sit down and wait, will you?  Great coffee is worth it.  Bet it’s better than the food at your cheap restaurant,” he couldn’t resist adding.

She flicked her hand over her shoulder as though to brush him off as she shuffled over to sit down.  “Sugar and creamer,” she told him.

He heaved a mighty sigh at that.  “Great coffee doesn’t need that shit to cover up the flavor,” he informed her.  “You’ll see.”

“I won’t see,” she countered.  “Coffee needs sugar and creamer or it’s gross, no matter how _great_ it supposedly is.”

“We’ll see, missy.  We’ll see.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Tell me again, why did you drag me in here?”

Biting her lip in an effort to keep from laughing outright at the absolute chagrin on the big man’s face, Kelly gave a calculated little shrug.  “It’s good for a laugh, don’t you think?”

The look of pure irritation on Cartham’s face bespoke his disagreement with her bald statement.  “Can’t say I think it’s that funny,” he muttered.

She giggled quietly.  He didn’t appear to have heard her since he was too busy, looking around as though he were trying to make sure that no one he knew walked into Bran’s Late-Night Peep Show, the novelty-slash-adult store that she’d pulled him into.  She’d discovered the shop a few weeks ago on one of her days off.   The front of the store was an eclectic collection of novelty items that ranged from funny, if not slightly twisted, to mildly offensive along with the standard fare of lava lamps, blacklight posters, anime tee-shirts and the like.  The back of the shop that you had to show ID to gain entrance to held everything more adult in nature from sex toys to bondage gear to adult novelties and the standard array of porn.  She’d already tried to talk him into buying a package of gummi nipples.  He refused to even touch the package.

She picked up a small box of mints and held them out to him.  “How about these?  You could whip ‘em out during one of your meetings with Cain and offer him one.”

He grunted something entirely unintelligible, narrowing his eyes as he read the box: Minty Spermies, it said.  “No.”

She blinked and shot him a very innocent look.  “Are you sure?  Look!  Some of them have tiny bows on their heads!”

“Those . . . things . . . don’t really have bows,” he growled, and to her amusement, he actually blushed.  “Put those up before someone sees you holding them.”

Kelly rolled her eyes.  “You know, don’t you?  This whole place is probably monitored by video cameras.”  To emphasize her point, she turned around, held the box, high in the air, and gave them a good, loud shake.  “Hey, look!  I’m holding Minty Spermies!” she hollered.  “I’m Kelly, and this is Cartham!”

“Oh, my God,” he growled, quickly slipping his hand around her and slapping it over her mouth.  “Can’t take you anywhere,” he fumed, pulling the box out of her hand and dropping it onto the shelf.

She snorted, trying to breathe and laugh through his unforgiving hand.

“Are you going to behave?” he asked.

She wasn’t done laughing, but she did nod.

He narrowed his eyes.  “I don’t think I believe you.”

She blinked.  “I ‘an’t ‘reeve.”

“You can, too, breathe,” he told her.

She considered, sticking out her tongue and licking his hand, but before she could, a nice, healthy burp slipped out of her, only to be muffled by his palm.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed, yanking his hand away from her mouth.  “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

She couldn’t answer since she was too busy, giggling, and it took a few moments for her amusement to die down.  “Lunch was really good,” she argued.  “Admit it: you liked it.”

“It was till now.  Don’t throw up.”

She wrinkled her nose, but her eyes were still sparkling.  “I can’t help it.  Mexican food always makes me burp.”

He shook his head.  “Probably something you should have mentioned before we ate there,” he pointed out.  Suddenly, though, he scowled at her and sighed.  “Why do I get the feeling that the refried beans were a really, really bad idea?”

Kelly’s eyebrows lifted, and she tapped her lips thoughtfully.  “You should never be ashamed of your body functions, Cartham,” she replied.

“Mine aren’t the problem, but yours just might be.”

She nodded very slowly.  “Cartham?”

“What?”

“. . . Are you afraid I might fart?”

His scowl darkened.  “If you’re going to, just warn me first so I can get the hell away from you.”

She laughed.  “If I warned you, who would I blame it on?”

“You wouldn’t,” he growled.

Her response was a very Cheshire-cat-like grin.  “A gentleman always takes the blame for such things in public,” she told him.

“I don’t think that’s a real rule.”

“Sure, it is.”

“No, it’s not,” he insisted.  “Can we get out of here now?”

“I’m not done looking around,” she told him.  “Anyway, it’d make sense if you farted.”

“How do you figure?”

She shrugged, moving off down the aisle, paying more attention to the shelf than she was to him at the moment.  “Well, you’re a skunk,” she said in an entirely reasonable tone of voice.

He grunted.  “I am not.  I’m a pole-cat.”

“Yeah, same thing.”

“It is not,” he informed her.  “A skunk is of the genus Mephitidae while a pole-cat is in the order Carnivora and subfamily Mustelinae.”

She faced him long enough to level a very droll look at him.  “Nice use of the big words,” she told him.  “I have no idea what you just said, but I’m sure it makes sense to you.”

He snorted again.  “It means that a skunk is a skunk while a pole-cat is closer related to ferrets and weasels.  Any relation between the two is very, very distant, at best.”

“You’ve really thought that out,” she mused, slowly nodding as she regarded him.  “But you know, if it looks like a skunk . . .”

“All right.  Moving on . . .” he grumbled.

Figuring that she really ought to take pity on him, Kelly laughed and grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the doorway and back out onto the street once more.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, this new job of yours . . . It’s not dangerous or anything?”

Blinking as she glanced up from the magazine she was leafing through, Kelly seemed a little confused by his question for a moment.  Then she shook her head.  “Dangerous?  No . . . I mean, I just change out casino chips from the safety of a bulletproof booth.”

He didn’t look like he was entirely convinced, but he nodded slowly.  “Okay.”

They’d returned to her apartment after she’d dragged him into a few more stores.  At least the others were a lot less embarrassing, and he hadn’t minded them so much.  Still, all day, he’d been thinking about her new job, most especially since she’d said she was working at a casino.  He figured that the housekeeping job at the hotel was safer, but he’d already looked up the casino she had mentioned, and it seemed pretty decent.  It wasn’t one of the biggest nor the most notorious ones in Las Vegas, but it wasn’t a seedy dump, either.  Even so, he couldn’t help but think that he ought to check it out, just to make sure that she really wasn’t going to be in any actual danger . . .

“Do they have armed guards?”

“Of course, they do,” she replied, sounding a little preoccupied since she’d buried herself in that magazine again.  _Cosmopolitan_.  Not really his thing . . .

“It said that there was an attempted robbery there a few months ago,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I heard about that . . . They caught the guy, though, so not a big deal.”

He wasn’t inclined to agree.  All it took was one off-kilter individual for things to have gone really bad.

He sighed.

‘ _So, stop by there before you go to the airport tomorrow . . . You’ve got some time, anyway._ ’

‘ _Yeah, but if she finds out that I’m casing the joint . . ._ ’

‘ _She’s not going to be that upset if she does.  It’s no secret to her that people are concerned about her well-being.  If it worries you that much, just tell her._ ’

‘ _What?_ ’

‘ _Quit fussing about it and just tell her that you’re taking her to work in the morning so you can make sure that the place is well secured_.’

He sighed since that idea didn’t seem very wise, either.  Still . . .

“So . . . Did Cain tell you to check on me?”

Blinking as her question shook him out of his reverie, Cartham sat back.  “Aiyuh.”

She nodded slowly, scooching down a little farther, hiding behind the magazine a little more.  “I . . . I thought so.”

He’d have to be beyond slow to miss the deflated tone in her voice, the sudden sense of a harsh quelling of her ebullient mood that had lingered all day.  “I would have, anyway,” he told her.

“Uh, no,” she broke in, scrunching down even more, drawing her feet up like she was trying to make herself even smaller than she already was.  “I didn’t really think anything else.”

He hated the almost meek quality in her voice.  It didn’t match the girl he was slowly getting to know—had gotten to know so much better in the last couple days.  It . . . It bothered him a lot, even though he really didn’t understand why.  His feeling was so much deeper than it should have been, stronger than it ought to have been.

“Your . . . Your mom asked me to call her when I found you,” he admitted.  “Said she wanted me to let her know that you’re all right.  I didn’t, though. I mean, I didn’t call her.”  He shrugged.  “I figure if you want to call her, that’s up to you.”

She stilled for a moment before slowly lowering the magazine just enough to peer over the top of it at him.  “I don’t . . . don’t want to,” she muttered, ducking behind the publication once more.  “We don’t have a good relationship.  We never really have.”

“I figured that,” he told her.  “Kind of got that impression when I talked to her.”

She leaned over to drop the magazine on the coffee table, only to curl up into herself again, hands on her bent knees, chin, lips, obscured by them, her gaze falling to the side, and she slowly shook her head.  “‘ _You really did it this time, didn’t you?  Because of your carelessness—_ again _—we don’t have a place to live, lost everything—_ everything _—Kelly . . . All because you never, ever think_ . . .’” Raising her gaze, she slowly, hesitantly, met Cartham’s own, but there was a haunted kind of darkness there—a sadness that was tinged with a bitterness that he could understand.  “That’s what my mom said to me when I was laying there in the hospital, burned from head to foot . . . That’s what she said . . .”

And just what could he say to that?  He wasn’t there; he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter, anyway, because the perception in her head was far stronger than anything else, and if that’s what she remembered, then he wasn’t about to try to tell her that she didn’t have a right to feel the way she did.

Kelly angrily swiped the side of her hand over her face, wiping away a couple of tears that somehow managed to deepen her feelings, whatever they were.  It was simple enough to discern her sense of righteous indignation, but there was more to it, too—that emotion that was much more difficult to define.  It was something that Cartham recognized because he’d lived with it, too, for such a long time, and, though it was a long, long time ago, it had never been truly forgotten.

“Anyway, I don’t owe her an explanation.  I don’t need to tell her that I’m all right.  I don’t need—” Cutting off abruptly as a hitched breath punctuated her words, she stubbornly shook her head, scowled at the far side of the room.  “—Need to say a thing, just so she sleeps better at night.”

“Okay,” he relented, slowly nodding his head.  “What you do or don’t tell her is up to you.  I won’t . . . I won’t tell her a thing.”

Only then, did she let out a tumultuous sigh.  “Thanks,” she said, clearing her throat, but she still wouldn’t look at him, and he figured it was fine, too.  “Th-Thanks.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Family drama_ …


	7. Curiosity

“Jerry Morris, jackal-youkai originally from Perth, Australia.  He slipped into the country just before a hunt could be issued for him some twenty years ago for causing an apartment building collapse in Sydney that killed forty-seven people and injured a slew of others, but he was recently spotted in the Valley of Fire State Park, not far from Las Vegas.  Jude Covington wanted to send his hunter in to track him down, but I told him that we could take care of it quicker and more efficiently since this is our turf, anyway.”

Cartham grunted, crossing his ankles as he settled back in the chair in Zelig’s well-appointed office.  “You starting an international pissing war?” he countered mildly.

Cain snorted.  “Nope.  It just makes good sense.  After all, if he did send in one of his hunters, I’d still have to send one of you with him.  I’m only cutting out the proverbial middle man, so to speak.”

Cartham nodded slowly.  He knew from the few past instances where executive hunt orders had been transferred, it wasn’t really as simple as that.  Once the case was turned over, the acting tai-youkai would still have to investigate the charges, make sure that they still applied since every region had its own rules that varied just a little.  A few years ago, Cain had to send a case to Ian MacDonnough, the European tai-youkai, and MacDonnough, douchebag that he was, had decided that Cain’s case wasn’t strong enough to warrant a hunt, thereby effectively giving the youkai in question a stay of execution, so long as he remained within MacDonnough’s jurisdiction.  To Cartham’s knowledge, the bastard was still there, too, and likely was still up to his old tricks . . .

Cain sighed, shoving a slim-file across the desk.  Cartham leaned forward to nab it, turning it on and opening the file to stare thoughtfully at the target, Jerry Morris.  Spiky, frosted blonde-tipped, black hair, a slightly elongated nose, lips that were on the thin side, slightly bulging eyes that were so dark, they appeared to be black . . . He couldn’t rightfully tell from the snapshot, just how big Morris was, but he seemed to be pretty slight of build, given that the black trench coat in the picture hung from his frame in all the wrong ways.

“Anyway, he might be tougher to track down,” Cain went on, oblivious to Cartham’s current line of thought.  “The Valley of Fire State Park isn’t that big—roughly forty-thousand-acres—but that terrain is pretty challenging, and we have no idea, just how long he’s been holing up there.  They do have a campground, though, so it might be easier to go that route.  Maybe some of the campers know something.”

Cartham grunted.  “Hey, Zelig . . .”

“Yeah?”

Settling back in the chair once more, Cartham held up his hands.  “Do I look like a camper to you?”

Cain blinked, stared at Cartham for a long moment, then he chuckled.  “Well, no, not really,” he allowed, scratching his chin thoughtfully.  “Well, I think Larry’s available.  I could give him a call.  He’s probably better suited for this one . . .”

Cartham grunted as Cain reached for the phone.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Larry.  Hold on.”  Cain hit a couple buttons, and the call transferred to the computer.  A moment later, the video feed connected.  Larry looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower, which made sense.  It was only ten in the morning in Maine, which meant that it was about seven in Washington state where Larry lived.  “Hey, I’ve got an assignment for you.”

“All right,” Larry agreed.  “Oh, hey, Cartham.”

Cartham only nodded his greeting, weaving his fingers together atop his chest.

“I’ve got a guy who seems to be hiding out in the Valley of Fire State Park—wanted for a number of human deaths in Australia.”

“Was thinking about doing a fishing trip, but I guess I could put it off . . .” Scratching his head thoughtfully, Larry’s clear blue eyes seemed to cloud over as he considered it.  “Valley of Fire State Park?  Oh, in, uh, Nevada?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Cain said.  “It shouldn’t be too difficult, aside from tracking him down, but I figured it’d be easier to take care of if you stated on-site at the camp grounds.  I was going to send Cartham, but . . .”

Larry chuckled.  “Yeah, not really the camping type,” he agreed.  “It shouldn’t be any trouble,” he decided.  “Got any intel on him?”

“I’ll send it in a minute,” Cain said.  “Oh, and after you’re done with that, can you drop by Las Vegas?  My daughter’s friend’s living there.  I just want you to check in on her.”

“Yeah, okay,” Larry allowed.

“Cartham can send you Kelly’s details.  Nothing big.  I just want to make sure that she’s all right.”

Frowning at the change of directives, Cartham cleared his throat, deliberately assuming an even more casual position.  “You know, I’ll take care of it,” he said, interrupting the conversation.

Cain blinked.  “Uh, but—”

Cartham shrugged.  “Eh, it won’t be a big deal.  Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve been camping.”

Larry frowned.  “Hey, uh, Cartham . . . Do you own a tent?”

He grunted.  “Who needs a tent?”

“Well, if you’re trying to blend in with other campers, you might want to try, looking like one instead of one of Hell’s Angels.”

“Point taken,” Cartham replied, rolling his eyes, shaking his head.  “Anyway, weren’t you going fishing or something?”

“Yeah, I was thinking about it, but I haven’t made any solid plans.  I can take the assignment, sure.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Cartham replied before Cain could add his own two-cents.

“Well, all right, then . . . I guess Cartham’ll take this one.  Have fun on your fishing trip,” Cain said.

“Yep, call if you need anything else.”

The connection ended, and Cain tapped the button to turn off the monitor before slowly, almost cautiously, lifting his gaze to meet Cartham’s.  He looked like he was trying to figure something out, but finally, he just shook his head.  “Okay, hunter.  You’ve got your orders.  Check in on Kelly, too, while you’re there.”

Cartham hauled himself out of the chair and headed for the door, raising a hand to indicate that he’d heard him.

“Oh, are you leaving?  I’ve almost got lunch ready, if you’d like to stay,” Gin Zelig remarked as he stepped out of Cain’s office.

“Sorry, but you know, your mate’s a slave driver.”

Gin giggled, her amber eyes, lighting with little sparkles.  “I’m sure that it’d be fine if you were an hour or so late to get going.”

Cartham chuckled.  “Well, one of your meals takes more than an hour,” he reminded her, mostly because it was nearly impossible, not to sit around, talking to her.  She was entirely too engaging, too sweet, that Cartham had wondered more than once, just how Cain Zelig had managed to land a woman like her, to start with.

Gin seemed a little disappointed, but in the end, she shrugged.  “At least let me pack up a little lunch for you to take with you,” she offered, turning on her heel, heading back toward the kitchen.  “You stay put!”

He didn’t argue with her.  He’d learned a while ago that it wasn’t a good idea.  Oh, she’d agree easily enough, but even then, those cute little hanyou ears of hers would droop, and then he’d end up, feeling like the biggest, meanest ogre on earth . . .

Instead, he took the time to call and make arrangements for a flight out to Las Vegas, and if he hurried, he’d be able to catch it since the next one they had available wasn’t until very late tonight.

‘ _So . . ._ ’

‘ _So . . .?_ ’

Cartham’s youkai-voice grunted.  ‘ _So, are we going to discuss that whole thing?_ ’

‘ _What whole thing?_ ’

The voice snorted.  ‘ _What do you mean, what whole thing?  That one-eighty you just did in Cain’s office.  Since I happen to know that you’re not really that keen on camping, then I’d guess that it was the order that Larry check up on Kelly that bothered you, right?  So-o-o-o-o . . .?_ ’

Cartham grunted.  ‘ _What?  That?  That wasn’t anything.  She just . . . It took her long enough to warm up to me, didn’t it?  Sending in someone else?  Yeah, that won’t work . . ._ ’

‘ _Ah, so, we’re taking one for the team, then, are we?  Okay._ ’

He didn’t bother to argue with that, and he was saved from further scrutiny when Gin hurried back into the foyer with a black plastic bentou box that she handed to him.  “There!”

“Uh, thanks,” he said, reaching for the door handle.  “I gotta get moving.  The flight I booked boards in a few hours, so—”

“Oh, no, no!  Go on!  Have a safe flight and be careful!”

He nodded and slipped outside, taking the steps off the porch, two at a time and completely ignoring the sudden sense of anticipation that he had no reason to feel . . .

 

* * *

 

 

“Wow . . .”

Turning away from the small locker after she had retrieved her purse, Kelly raised an eyebrow at Lyza, who was leaning in the doorway, slowly shaking her hair.  Her expression was a mix of bemusement and mock-despair, and she shrugged.  “What?”

Lyza sighed melodramatically.  “Did you really just blow that guy off?”

Kelly blinked.  “‘One-hundred-thousand bucks worth of chips, please.  _One_ . . . _hundred_ . . . _thou-u-u-usand_ ,’” she imitated  since the man in question really had wanted to make sure that she heard him clearly—and that everyone in the vicinity heard him, too.  “That guy?”

Lyza laughed at Kelly’s dead-on impersonation.  “At least you know he’s got some cash,” she said.

Kelly snorted.  “Apparently, more dollars than sense, if you ask me,” she retorted.  “Besides, I don’t have time to pander to a man right now, especially one who may or may not be teetering on the cusp of a gambling problem.”

“Never date a guy you’ve met at a casino?” Lyza quipped.  “Actually, that’s probably pretty sound advice.”

“Mhmm,” Kelly intoned.  “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lyza giggled and headed back down the hallway since her break was just about over.  Kelly, however, was done for the day.

‘ _Well, done with work, anyway_ . . .’

Letting out a deep breath as she headed in the opposite direction toward the secured door that led into the casino, Kelly stifled a yawn, checking her watch.  She had about forty minutes to get across town to the Nevada Technical Institute where she was taking classes in business management and staffing resources.  She wasn’t working toward a degree yet, but she wanted the certification.  Her boss had told her a couple months ago that he thought she could get promoted to cashier manager if she got those certifications since the current cashier manager was set to retire in a few months.  She’d had to come up with the money for the courses, but if she got the promotion, the casino would reimburse her if she negotiated it into her contract, and, while it wasn’t exactly her ideal job, it was definitely a step in the right direction.

And the money was damn good, too, even if she didn’t get a promotion.  Already, she’d earned a couple merit-based raises, along with her first quarterly bonus for having better than ninety-five-percent of her cash-out figures being dead-on.  All of that, along with her tips, meant that she had saved up just over two thousand dollars of the money that she still owed Cartham.

She sighed as she pressed her thumb against the lock and waited for it to release.

Cartham.

She hadn’t seen him in nearly two months.  She had, however, kept in touch with him via text, often sending him really off the wall and silly memes designed to heckle him.  It amused her that he actually did normally text her back, even if it was little more than an exasperated emoji.

The thing was, she really didn’t know, just what to make of him, had no real idea, just what their relationship really was—if there was one, anyway.  Most of the time, she kept things in a certain perspective, knowing deep down that the only reason he had helped her, that he’d found her, was simply because Cain had ordered him to do so, and, yes, he did have to come by so that she had a chance to pay him back.  She understood what he’d said about being beyond cautious about not giving out his home address.  She supposed that if she worked a job like he did, she’d feel the same way.

But she’d be lying, too, if she didn’t admit that sometimes . . . Sometimes, she’d stop, think about it, wonder what things would have been like if she’d just met him randomly somewhere.  If her life had been different, what then?  What if she’d met him in the middle of the grocery store back home?  Maybe in a restaurant or even in the library . . .? If she hadn’t been disfigured in the fire . . .

‘ _Does that really matter?  Life is the way it is, and maybe you were meant to meet him in this way._ ’

She frowned, pushing out of the security door when the lock released with a soft click.  It swung closed behind her, fastening with a repeat click to indicate that the lock had engaged once more.  Shouldering her purse once more, she headed for the front of the casino.

“Hey, hey, hey . . . You off work now?  What a coincidence . . . I was just leaving, too . . .”

Sparing the man who hurried over, falling into step beside her, a sidelong glance, Kelly summarily dismissed him.  She was off work, and she chose not to fraternize with the customers of the establishment.  It was discouraged but not strictly against protocol, but she had decided long ago that it was a good policy to adhere to—not to mention the fact that she just didn’t feel like exposing herself to dating again.

When she didn’t respond, he chuckled.  “Now, I know you can talk,” he coaxed, a certain arrogance, seeping into his tone.  “How about joining me for dinner?  I’m staying at the Revan Palisade, and the restaurants there are absolutely top-notch.”

“I’ve already got plans,” she replied in a brusque and business-like tone, reaching out to push the glass door open, only for him to hurriedly stride forward and hold the door for her.  He wasn’t trying to be polite, and she knew it.  Guys like him tended to use those kinds of gestures as a part of their whole façade—the nice guy—the smooth guy—and she saw right through it.

“Surely you can change them, can’t you?  How often does someone offer to take you to dinner at one of _the_ best restaurants in the United States?”

She could feel the start of a very definite headache coming on.  Opting to ignore him since she figured it wouldn’t matter, what she said, he would still choose to brush aside her claims, all the while, convincing himself that she was just playing hard to get when nothing in the world was further from the truth.

All in all, she figured it wouldn’t matter.  She didn’t have the time nor the inclination to try to find a nice way to tell the overzealous man that she just wasn’t interested, and she had someplace she needed to be.  Ignoring the nagging little voice that sounded entirely too much like her mother that reminded her that what she was about to do was a colossal waste of money, she brushed past him and strode over to the curb, raising her hand to summon a taxi.  He looked genuinely surprised when she slipped into the cab and quickly closed the door, summarily dismissing him like he was not at all important to her as she murmured her destination to the driver and settled back for the ride.

 

* * *

 

 

Crossing his arms over his chest, Cartham frowned at the slight form of Jerry Morris, the jackal-youkai that he’d managed to track down in less than twenty-four hours, deep in the middle of the Valley of Fire State Park.  The deep red of the valley still seemed to glow, even now, hence, the name of the state park, as the last rays of daylight disappeared on the horizon, casting a comforting darkness that thickened over the landscape.  In this secluded, remote place, he’d found him easily enough.  Morris either didn’t care enough to try to cover his tracks or he had sorely underestimated the abilities of one of Zelig’s top hunters.  Cartham didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t much care, either.

In truth, it had only taken a few hours to glean enough information from the local campers to find him.  It seemed that Morris was known to wander onto the grounds, making casual conversation with those campers, sometimes joining them for a beer or even a meal in a couple instances.  A couple of them had mentioned that Morris had mentioned a pond that was situated about two hours’ hike north of the camp grounds.

It was a good tip since Cartham had located the youkai’s campsite easily enough near that pond.  Then he’d tracked Morris down to a small valley where he was trying to trap his dinner . . .

“You don’t have the right to hunt me down,” Morris said, trying to get a good feel for the terrain where they were, deep in one of the valleys between the unforgiving rock formations for which the area was named.  The unmistakable condescension in the man’s tone, fairly dripping from his words.

He was a dime a dozen, as far as Cartham was concerned.  It didn’t seem to matter, time, place, era, crime . . . They were all the same, weren’t they?  Fundamentally, it all came down to the misplaced sense that they were right, that they had the right, to do whatever they wanted, regardless of who they hurt along the way.

Cartham stood his ground, but said nothing, knowing from experience that Morris wasn’t really going to listen to anything he had to say, so why bother?

It actually irritated him quite a bit, really.  That Morris was that easy to track down just reeked of his opinion that North America’s hunters were subpar, not to mention the absolute arrogance on his part, thinking that he could go wherever he wanted and that no one would catch him.

He was dead damn wrong.

Morris tried to survey the area without being too obvious about it, searching for a way out, Cartham figured, not that he had one.

“So, which one of the Zelig’s lackeys are you?” Morris asked, inflicting more than a little bravado into his tone.

Cartham shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest, the faint clink as the chains that hung from the jacket, punctuating the movements.  “The name’s Cartham,” he said as the jackal slowly tried to back away without drawing the hunter’s notice.

“Cartham,” Morris repeated, and even across the distance, even in the stingy light of the burgeoning night, he could see the youkai’s face pale.  He’d obviously heard of him, and, given the situation, Cartham wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or a bad thing.  “Hey, uh, listen . . . I-I-I have money—more money than you’re being paid to hunt me down, I’d bet.  If you, uh . . . If you just tell the Zelig that you couldn’t find me . . .”

Cartham grunted.  “Oh, yeah?” he replied, figuring that he might as well humor the bastard, at least, for the moment.  “You think?”

Morris nodded quickly, rather emphatically.  “Yeah, yeah . . . Here,” he went on, suddenly struck by apparent inspiration as he fumbled with the cell phone he dug out of the pocket of his rumpled and dingy pants.  “Just . . . Just tell me where to send the money, and—”

Cartham shook his head.  “Well, you know, why don’t you tell me if you killed the people you were accused of killing?”

Morris’ nerves suddenly seemed to disappear, and he chuckled.  “They were easy pickings,” he replied with a careless shrug.  “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Is that why you killed them?  Because they were . . . How did you put that?”  He snapped his fingers.  “That’s right . . . _easy pickings_ . . .”

“Oh, come now.  You’re a hunter, aren’t you?  You understand that feeling, don’t you?  That sense of power, that you get to make the decision, who lives and who dies . . . I walked through the city . . . It’s a beautiful city; have you ever been there?  Everything about it except for one thing . . . It’s not like I was searching for a target or anything, don’t get me wrong.  Every morning, though, when I woke up . . . Well, I chose the building simply because it obscured the view from the hotel where I stayed when I first got there.  It had to go; that’s all.”  He laughed, shook his head as though he’d made a joke.  “I was simply improving the view.  Any fool could have seen that.”

“So, you chose to kill innocent people because the building they were in was obstructing your view?”

Morris tapped the side of his nose as his grin widened, as the spark in his eyes glowed brighter.  “Acceptable loss.  Don’t get it twisted, though.  I didn’t _target_ those humans.  I really don’t have anything against them, but you have to admit, their lives are so transient, why does it matter?  It just shaved a decade or two off their existences . . . No big thing.”

His reasoning, the way he stated his opinion so nonchalantly, sickened Cartham.  He’d heard enough, damned if he hadn’t.

Morris didn’t seem to realize that Cartham was done listening.  The bastard chuckled, slowly shook his head.  “Anyway, feel free to tell your illustrious tai-youkai not to worry.  I’ll be happy to move on soon enough.”

Cartham said nothing as he stood his ground, even as Morris turned on his heel, as he started to amble away, like he didn’t have a care in the world.  Tamping down his general disgust at the man’s pomposity, he brushed aside Morris’ claims and calmed his emotions, separating himself from his thoughts as a matter of course—something he’d become damn good at over the years.

He didn’t move as the chains, hanging from his jacket, shot out, elongating, moving in such a blur that Morris barely had time to react.  He gasped, grunted, as the chains wrapped around him, dragging him forward as he struggled to regain his freedom.  Too bad Cartham’s youki was far too strong, quickly overwhelming Morris’ own.  Hiking boots, scraping over the hardened terrain, he struggled more, and, as he did, the chains wrapped themselves tighter and tighter.

“For the murder of forty-seven humans in Sydney, Australia nearly twenty years ago, you’ve been targeted to be destroyed by the authority of both Jude Covington as well as Cain Zelig—in the names of the tai-youkai,” Cartham rumbled.

Morris jerked, flailed, gasping for breath as the chains snaked up around his throat.  The flesh of his face mottled, greying fast, purpling in the capillaries that traversed the surface as the blood vessels ruptured, one by one, and, all at once, the deafening crack of the rogue youkai’s neck snapped.  His body went limp, dangled there, held upright by Cartham’s chains for a brief moment before his body shattered, exploded in a wash of dust and a flash of white light . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Apologies.  I went through most of the day yesterday, thinking it was Thursday (don’t ask.), and I’ve been having some issues with my left eye, so vision wasn’t great.  So, enjoy this chapter for this weekend, and I’ll post again next weekend (and hopefully, I won’t forget what day it is then, too_ …)
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> _** Bonnie ——— monsterkittie ——— minthegreen ——— Elizabeth
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Bastard_ …


	8. Naked

Kelly stepped out of the casino, letting out a deep breath as she blinked rapidly, her eyes, taking a moment to adjust to the late afternoon sunshine.

It was insanely hot—hot enough that she could see the vacillating waves of heat as they rose from the pavement and distorted the cityscape in lazy, almost lethargic, lines.  One-hundred-five degrees, Lyza had said in a disgusted kind of way over the cold caramel lattes she’d brought back after her lunch break, and if Kelly had heard, ‘but it’s a dry heat’, once, she’d heard it a hundred times over the course of the day.  Heat at this kind of temperature was heat, and it really didn’t matter if it was a dry heat or if it wasn’t.  It was pretty miserable, period.

If she had it her way, she’d head back to her apartment and crank up the air conditioner and not leave it till the next time she was scheduled to work, which wouldn’t be until Monday, but before she could do that, she had a class tonight.

This class, however, was a later one, and she’d gotten off work a little earlier than usual, which meant she didn’t have to be there for a couple hours.  Ordinarily, she’d walk to the campus since it wasn’t that far, and it irritated her to no end that she’d wasted the money on a cab yesterday—that she’d felt like she had no other option than to do that, given the troll who wasn’t interested in leaving her alone.

It didn’t make sense, did it?  Just why was that guy so interested in her, in the first place?  She wasn’t really accustomed to getting that kind of attention.  That was the kind of thing that Belle had normally attracted, but Kelly herself never really had.  Maybe it was because she might be all right looking, but standing next to someone like Bellaniece Zelig?  ‘ _Check that.  Bellaniece Izayoi, right?_ ’ She sighed.  No, Belle was the one who stood out.  Kelly?  Kelly tended to blend into the background . . .

“Well, fancy meeting you here.”

She smothered a groan and kept walking, opting to ignore the voice—and the man it belonged to.

He chuckled, absolutely undaunted, as he hurried to keep up with her.  “Where are you headed, beautiful?”

“Beautiful?” she scoffed before she could stop herself.  “I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“Nope, not at all,” he quipped, missing or ignoring the absolute derision in her tone.  “Anyway, how about you tell me where we’re going?”

“That’s really none of your business—and _we_ aren’t going anywhere together,” she replied brusquely.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

He didn’t get the very blatant hint.  “It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to let you walk off on your own, Kelly.”

She bristled at the use of her name from him.  Given that she was required to wear her clearance ID at work, it wasn’t really surprising that he had learned it.  Even so . . . “It’s also not very gentlemanly for you to assume that I want you to walk with me at all, especially when I don’t even know your name—and no, I’m not asking.”

“I love your spirit.  Girls with that kind of spirit are always a great time in the sack,” he said with another laugh.  “My name’s Ken.  Ken Davrays, and before you ask, yes, that’s Ken Davrays of Davarays Pharmaceuticals.”

“Never heard of them,” she lied since it was one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the USA, maybe the world.

“Really?”  To his credit, he did sound very surprised, but her lie did nothing to shake his misplaced and arrogant optimism.  “Well, I’d be more than happy to tell you all about the company over dinner.  What do you say?”

She started to open her mouth, to tell the irritating man that she really wasn’t interested— _again_ —only to stop short when a very familiar youki washed over her.  Out from under the overhang of a small convenience store, Cartham stepped out of the shadows and made no bones about heading straight toward her.  He didn’t say anything right off, but he did spare a moment to look the human up and down, as though he were assessing him as a potential threat.  “Cartham!  Hi!” she blurted before she could stop herself, very aware of the crash of distinct relief that surged over her—and very aware of the really strange outfit that Cartham was wearing.  If she weren’t so uncomfortable because of the presence of the irritating would-be suitor, she’d comment on it, but that would have to wait, at least, for the moment.

He nodded at her greeting, but he didn’t take his attention off of Ken.  “A friend of yours, Kel?”

“No,” she replied before Ken could try to claim that he was.  “Just a guy from the casino.”

It didn’t surprise her when Ken gave Cartham the once-over and summarily dismissed him as wanting.  “Don’t worry about it, um, Cartham, was it?  Kelly and I were just going to grab some dinner.”

Cartham shifted his gaze to meet Kelly’s without moving his head, and he must have read her expression right because he slowly looked back up again and chuckled.  “Well, we already made dinner plans, but I guess if you’d like to tag along—”

“I’m sure that Mr. Davrays is too busy for that,” Kelly broke in with a bright smile.  “Come on, Cartham.”

She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him away, but he didn’t move, which meant that she didn’t, either.  Tamping down her irritation at her perceived lack of strength, which really wasn’t the issue since Cartham was a hell of a lot bigger than she.

“Davrays?  Interesting last name,” Cartham remarked casually, affecting a relaxed sort of slouch.

“Davray’s Pharmaceuticals,” Ken supplied.  “Future CEO, actually, when my father chooses to retire.”

Cartham nodded slowly.  “Impressive . . . and you’re . . .  hitting on Kelly, I take it.”  His nodding slowed, and he rubbed his stubbly chin thoughtfully.  “Let me ask you something, _Mr_. Davrays . . . Has Kelly, here, given you any kind of indication that she’s welcoming your advances?”

Ken chuckled and actually winked at Kelly.  It took everything within her to keep from rolling her eyes.  “We’re working on it,” he said, sounding a lot more confident than he really ought to.

Cartham chuckled, too.  “Is that right?  Hey, uh, Kel?”  He gestured at Ken.  “Are you interested in Mr. Davrays?”

She managed to paste on a tepid smile.  “Um, no, I’m not,” she admitted.

Cartham jerked his head toward her as he turned his attention back to Ken once more.  “You heard the lady.  Catch you later, buddy,” he said, slipping an arm around Kelly to lead her away.

They didn’t say anything as they walked down the boulevard.  To be honest, Kelly was half-expecting the irritating man to follow them, but to her relief, he didn’t.  Maybe he realized that Cartham really would be much more than someone like him could handle.  She didn’t know, and she didn’t really care, either.  Cartham let Kelly lead the way, and she sighed as the vague headache that had been threatening ever since Ken had approached her outside the casino loosened its grasp on her.

“So, um . . . _Are_ you hungry?” he finally asked, breaking the companionable silence.

“Yeah,” she allowed with an offhanded shrug.  “I have a couple hours before class, so—”

“Class?”

She nodded.  “I texted you about the classes,” she reminded him.

“Oh, that’s right.  You did.  They’re going okay?”

“Very well.  I just have another week before finals, and then, I’ll have my certification.”

“For that promotion, you mean?  You can do it.”

“I hope so.  I mean, my manager hasn’t mentioned it again . . .”

“Yeah, but I doubt he’d have said anything about it if he didn’t think you could do it.  You’ll get it.”

Something about his quiet praise, the absolute belief in his tone, made her blush, and she cleared her throat nervously as she veered toward Scolari’s, a very nice little Italian restaurant that she’d loved since she’d discovered it, and Cartham followed her inside.

It only took a few minutes for them to be seated, and they ordered drinks before the waitress hurried away.

“So, Cartham . . . What’s with that outfit?” she asked, burying her face behind her menu, lest he should see the little grin on her face.  Given that he was wearing his normal jacket, despite the ungodly temperature was suspicious enough, but under that, he wore a bright red Hawaiian shirt and a pair of knee length khaki cargo shorts.  Add to that, the bright white, brand new sneakers and ankle socks, and, well . . . He looked entirely un-Cartham and just a little ridiculous, to be honest.

He grunted, scanning his menu, and he answered without looking up.  “I know, I look stupid,” he muttered.  “It’s my disguise for the job I just fnished.”

“You have to dress like a dork to find someone?  Wow . . .”

He snorted.  “Something like that.”

Kelly cleared her throat.  “So, you’re done for now, then . . . Are you staying here for a couple days?”

Cartham nodded, setting the menu aside.  “Well, kind of.  I mean, yes, but maybe not here in the city.”

“Oh?”

He shrugged, but then, he made a face.  “Well, I rented a spot at the campgrounds, so I guess I’m staying there since the fee’s non-refundable, and I hate to waste money.”

Something in his voice made her blink, and she glanced up at him, only to do a double-take.  He looked about as miserable as he could look, and she broke into a small smile.  “You don’t like camping?”

Again, he shrugged as the waitress slipped their drinks onto the table.  “Not really my favorite thing, no,” he admitted.  “I mean, I don’t mind living off the land, no, but the whole tourist-y part of it?  Yeah, I could do without that.”

“You could stay with me.  Then, you won’t be wasting money since it won’t cost you anything else.”

“Well, I didn’t want to just assume . . .” he admitted.

“Have you decided what you want?” the waitress asked, stopping at their table, tapping her bright red polished nails against the tablet in her hand as she waited for their order.

“Hmm, I don’t know.  Seafood sounds good, but it’s hard to trust that it’s as good as what you get back home,” Cartham muttered, frowning at his menu.

Kelly laughed since she understood that well enough.  Maine had some of the best seafood anywhere in the world, or so she believed.  “I’ll have the shrimp scampi with the garden salad with light Italian dressing on the side.”

“Sounds good,” Cartham added.  “Same.”

The waitress smiled and hurried away.

Kelly watched her go before turning her attention back to Cartham once more.  “You know, I’ve never been camping,” she admitted.  “I mean, not _real_ camping.  I don’t think that staying outside in a pup tent in Belle’s back yard counts.  Even then, I doubt we actually ever stayed outside all night . . .”

Cartham considered that for a moment before reaching for a steaming hot breadstick from the basket that the waitress had left with their drinks.  “Sounds like you’re soft,” he rumbled in an unmistakably teasing tone of voice.  “I doubt you’d like it, anyway.  This place has one outhouse, and it’s halfway across the grounds from the plot I rented.”

She thought it over for a long moment, pulling a breadstick from the basket and breaking it in half.  “I . . . I could camp with you,” she suggested.  “I mean, I have class tonight, but I’m off all weekend.”

“You sure you want to do that?  I mean, I told you about the bathroom situation . . .”

Kelly shrugged.  “Sure.  How bad could it be?”

 

* * *

 

 

“This . . . kind of sucks . . .”

“I blame this on you.”

Turning her face to peer at Cartham, who was as stretched out as much as he could be on the sleeping bag in the rather small tent, Kelly made a face and stuck out her tongue before looking out of the slightly opened tent flaps at the gray sky, the steadily falling rain.  “How is this my fault?” she countered.

He grunted, slipping onto his side, legs bent at the knees since it wasn’t a very large tent to start with, propping his head on his bent-elbow-ed hand.  “Easy.  It was your idea to come back out here and to try out camping, and that’s when it started raining.”

She rolled her eyes since that logic was about as goofy as the man’s outfit.  If he’d brought any of his normal clothing, she hadn’t seen it, and every last thing that he’d pulled out of his knapsack still had tags on them.  “I haven’t even gotten to sit by a campfire yet,” she pointed out.

It was true.  When they’d pulled the rented pick-up truck into the parking area at the campsite, it had already started to rain.  Kelly had figured it’d dry up by morning.  Now, at nearly noon, she was almost convinced that it was the coming of the second Great Flood.

“We could pack it in.  Go back to Vegas,” he suggested.

She laughed.  “Nah, I’m good.  Besides, it’s nice to get out of the city for a little while.”

Pushing himself up, he hunched forward, wrapped his arms around his spread knees.  “Yeah, well, if it doesn’t stop raining, then we’re going to be hungry,” he pointed out.  They’d bought some food, but it was stashed in a cooler, and pretty much all of it needed to be cooked.

“All right.  If it doesn’t stop raining by two, we’ll go back,” she offered.  “I should warn you, though . . . The food you bought?  I don’t know how to cook most of it.  The last time I tried to cook a steak, it came out kind of like shoe leather, so if you think I’m going to mess with it, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Cartham chuckled.  “I gotta admit, my cooking skills are limited, too, but I’m damn good at cooking a steak.”

“Okay, you’re good at that,” she mused.  “What else are you good at?”

Her question seemed to catch him off-guard, and he frowned thoughtfully.  “Oh, uh, I don’t know . . . I’m pretty good at working on motorcycles, I guess.  Rebuilt mine from the ground up.”

“Don’t suppose you have a picture of it?  Your bike?”

“Nope.  I’ll send you one when I go home, if I remember.”

She nodded.  “Do you have family?  I know you’ve mentioned that your parents aren’t around.  Are your aunt and uncle still alive?”

Letting out a deep breath, he flopped back and rubbed his face.  “Yeah, they are.  They live in Kentucky now, but I can’t say I’ve gone to see them in a long, long time—not since I left their house.  I have a couple cousins, but I wouldn’t know them if they were standing right there in front of me.”

“You . . . You don’t get along with your family?”

He shrugged, pushing himself up on his elbow once more.  “I’m just not too good at the whole family thing, I guess.”

Kelly frowned.  She had a feeling that there was a little more to it than he was saying, but he didn’t seem too interested in talking about it, either, and she couldn’t really blame him for that, she supposed.  She wasn’t too keen on talking about hers, either, come to think of it—and maybe she didn’t know him well enough to pry, anyway . . .

“What about you? Cousins and all that?”

She blinked and glanced at him with a shrug.  “Nope.  Both my parents were only children.  I guess that I might have some distant relatives because my grandmother had a sister, but I don’t know them, either.”

He uttered a little grunt and slowly nodded.  “Guess it might be kind of sad, if I think about it,” he admitted.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.  The more people, the more drama, right?  I prefer to think of it as eliminating drama . . .”

He chuckled.  “I guess . . . Anything else you wanna know?”

She rolled her eyes, but then, she bit her lip.  “Well, you know, you never did tell me your name—your first name.”

He snorted as he leaned over to haul his knapsack closer.  “What does it matter when I never use it?” he countered mildly.

She rolled her eyes and braced her hands against the canvas floor of the tent.  At least the water repellent wax on the underside of the canvas was doing its job of keeping them dry—sort of.  The overwhelming moisture in the air seemed to permeate everything, to the point that even her clothes felt as though they were clinging to her even though the temperature had dropped a good twenty-five degrees or more since the rain had started.

For some reason, his answer had felt more like a reminder—his way of telling her that they really weren’t friends, at all, that whatever she thought was little more than a figment of her imagination.  It felt like a dousing of very cold water . . .

“It doesn’t,” she replied, pivoting on her hands to face him.  “I mean, not really . . . Just, uh . . . Just curious, I guess . . .”

He didn’t say anything, but she could feel his gaze on her as she let her own drop to her legs, carefully covered in a pair of light sweatpants made out of tee-shirt material.  Vaguely, she wondered if the silence was as painful to him as it was to her, and she gnawed on her bottom lip.

Just what did she think she was doing, anyway?  Common sense reminded her regularly that she needed to stop looking forward to Cartham’s unscheduled visits.  After all, he was only checking in on her because of Cain’s orders—and because she owed him money.  True enough, he didn’t ever mention it, never issued her any kind of reminder, even in texts.  Still, once she’d finished paying him back, then he wouldn’t have a reason to come around anymore, so allowing herself to form any kind of real attachment to him was nothing but stupid, and she knew it.

So, why had she suggested, coming along with him to camp out?

‘ _You know why, Kelly.  You know why . . ._ ’

She flinched inwardly, shrinking up her shoulders, drawing herself in a little more tightly under the rather shapeless light hoodie.

Why was it that she felt so stupid?

‘ _Don’t answer that . . ._ ’

“Hey, Kel—”

“Uh, y-you know what?  I just remembered.  I planned on studying this weekend because we’ve got finals coming up, and I really need to do well on those . . . Do you . . .? Would it be a problem if we headed back now?  I-I mean, you said yourself that you completed your, uh, mission, right?  So, you probably want to be getting back to . . . to Maine, anyway . . .”

He didn’t answer right away, and she scooted over to pack her things away in her backpack.  He watched her for a minute, and then, he sighed.  “Okay, what’s bugging you?” he finally asked in his no-nonsense tone.

She shrugged, and she pasted on what she hoped was a friendly enough smile when she glanced at him.  “Nothing,” she insisted, cramming her hairbrush into the bag and yanking on the zipper as she tried to hold it closed.  “Everything’s fine!”

He didn’t look like he believed her, and, for a long moment, she thought that he might well argue it with her.  In the end, though, he didn’t.  No, he let out a deep breath and sat up, reaching for his bag to ready his things for the trip back to Las Vegas.

 

* * *

 

 

It was late when Cartham let himself into the small house, deep inside the property on the coast of Maine, and let the knapsack with his gear, fall heavily onto the old wood floor.  The plane out of Las Vegas was delayed, and he’d spent an extra two hours, sitting in a chair in the waiting area of the airport, bored out of his mind since he’d finished looking through the motorcycle magazine he’d bought to pass the time.  He’d considered, buying a book, but he had trouble, concentrating enough to read something like that when he wasn’t in private.  A lifetime of being on guard, he supposed, was something that was hard enough to ignore.

He really had no idea, just what had gotten into Kelly.  He’d tried to get her to talk some on the hour drive back to the city, to no avail.  It was as bad as the first day that they’d met.  In the end, he’d dropped her off and headed for the airport, even though he hadn’t planned on flying back till early next week.  He might not have figured out what was bothering her, but he didn’t have to be brilliant to realize that it had everything to do with him, and, what was worse, she’d yet to return the text he’d sent her, letting her know that he’d gotten back home safely.

Digging his wallet out of his back pocket, he dropped it on the small table near the door and sighed.

Stifling a sigh, he started to shrug off his jacket, only to stop when the stiffness of a plain white envelope stopped him.  Kelly had handed it to him before hopping into the pickup truck that he’d rented.  He hadn’t bothered to look at it, though, and had simply stuffed it into his pocket instead.  Frowning as he pulled it loose and used his claw to slit the top of the envelope, he pulled out a wad of money and slowly counted it: two-thousand dollars, all in one-hundred-dollar bills . . .

She was over halfway done paying him back.

For some reason, the relief he ought to feel about it just wasn’t there.  After all, loaning out money wasn’t really something that he’d ever actually done before.  He couldn’t rightfully say he was close enough to anyone for it to have ever come up, especially since those that he considered ‘friends’ had money of their own, so it had never been an issue.

He ought to be relieved, right?  He might not be obsessed with money, but he certainly liked to keep a careful eye on his account balances.  As such, he knew damn well that it wouldn’t really matter if Kelly never paid him back, but still . . .

‘ _Hey, Cartham . . . Is she our friend?_ ’

Blinking at the rather bizarre question posed by his youkai-voice, Cartham frowned.  ‘ _Our friend?  Well, I . . ._ ’

The frown deepened as he trailed off.  He might well have agreed, up until the weird way she’d suddenly shut down, and the hell of it was, he really had no idea, just what had happened.  Everything had been fine, as good as it could be, considering the torrential rain.  It was actually really comfortable between them—and then . . . To be honest, he really didn’t have any idea, just what had altered her mood.

‘ _That’s not true.  If you’ll recall, she asked you what your first name is, and you brushed her off.  Then, she—_ ’

‘ _That?  That was hardly worth the weirdness,_ ’ he countered.  ‘ _Everyone knows I go by Cartham.  Hell, I’d guess most people forgot I even have a first name.  That’s not it._ ’

‘ _Maybe, but then, Kelly may not realize that.  I mean, if you think about it, it makes sense.  She met you as one of Zelig’s hunters, and you really only gave her your last name.  She didn’t know you before, and she certainly wouldn’t realize that you really aren’t called anything, but Cartham by anyone, ever._ ’

It sounded reasonable, and yet, how could that possibly be it?  It made no sense, did it?  Just not telling her his first name?  It wasn’t nearly enough to be the cause of her mercurial mood swing.

The chime of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts, and he started, automatically patting his pockets in an effort to locate it.  It didn’t take long.

‘ _Hope you made it home safely.  Thanks for taking me camping_.’

His frown deepened at the almost clinical sound of the message, and he sank down on the old, but clean dark brown leather sofa, staring at the phone as he let out a deep breath.

‘ _Flight was delayed.  Just got in.  Can’t decide if I should try to get some sleep or not._ ’

‘ _Tough question . . . I mean, there are pros and cons to both sides.  Sleep is always good, but if you have to get up in less than two hours, then I’d say, no because too little sleep can be worse than none at all._ ’

‘ _Unless Zelig calls me in, I don’t have to be up at any special time.  Maybe I should have stayed longer in Vegas.  Been a while since I’ve had any kind of vacation._ ’

‘ _Now you’re just being a whiner, Cartham, and, for the record, camping doesn’t really suit you.  Suck it up and get to work._ ’

He chuckled softly at her response.  She sounded a little more like the Kelly he’d come to know, and that relieved him more than anything.  ‘ _I’m not whining, missy.  Just stating facts._ ’

She sent him back a smiley face.  A moment later, another text came in.  ‘ _Yeah, well, it sounded pretty whiny to me, Cartham—if that is, in fact, your real name._ ’

Cartham snorted and rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t fade.  ‘ _Oh, it is.  At least, it’s the one I’ve always used.  The only people who ever used my first name were my parents.  When they died, I guess I just didn’t like hearing anyone else use it, so I just started going by Cartham.  That’s all._ ’

It took her a few minutes to reply.  In fact, he’d almost thought that she wasn’t going to when his phone rang, and he connected it without a second thought.  “Hey,” she said, her voice, warm and soft, that alto that was brushed with just a hint of a whispery quality.  He liked her voice.  He . . . He liked it a lot.  “I, uh . . . I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you if I did.  I mean, it makes perfect sense when you explain it that way, and I—”

“It’s fine—I’m fine . . . I was ten.  It was a long time ago,” he interrupted.  He hadn’t meant to make her feel bad, or worse, to make her feel sorry for him.  Pity never was his style.

“I’m still sorry.  That had to be horrible for you.”

He grunted.  “Keep your pity, missy.  I’m a big boy now, aight?”

She sighed, but she didn’t argue with him, even though he could hear the censure in the sound.  “Okay,” she agreed, though she didn’t sound like she particularly wanted to.  “You know, though, most guys would love to get girls to pity them.  They think they can score more points or something.”

“Never been something I’ve ever wanted,” he admitted.  “No more than you do, right?”

“Touché,” she murmured.  “How about neither of us pities the other, ever?  Sound good?”

“I can deal with that,” he said.

“I’m glad you made it back safely,” she went on, her voice, taking on an almost sing-song quality.  “You need to ditch those clothes, though.  They’re really not ‘you’.”

He uttered a terse sound.  “Tell me about it.  Probably looked even more stupid with the jacket, but, well . . .”

“Yeah, why were you wearing that?” she asked.  “You certainly weren’t cold.”

“It’s my protection,” he told her, wondering absently, just why he was admitting that to her, in the first place.  “The chains are my weapons.”

“Oh . . . Really?”

He chuckled.  “Mhmm.”  Then, he yawned.

She gave the smallest little chuckle.  “You sound really tired . . . It’s, what?  Two in the morning there?”

“Closer to three,” he said.  “Guess I ought to get some shut-eye.  You, too, missy.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied.  “Uh, Cartham?”

“Hmm?”

She hesitated, but he could hear her breathe.  “I . . . I was glad to . . . to see you this weekend.  I . . .”

Cartham’s smile dimmed but the heightened brightness didn’t leave his eyes, either.  “Me, uh, too,” he said.  “M-Me, too . . .”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> **_Reviewers_ **
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_MMorg  
> _** — — —
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_AO3  
> _** cutechick18 ——— minthegreen ——— Elizabeth ——— TheWonderfulShoe
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _No wonder he goes by Cartham, then_ …
> 
>  


	9. Unsettled

“Ms. Hendricks . . .”

Blinking as she started slightly, leaning away when the nondescript white envelope appeared directly under her nose from over her shoulder, Kelly hesitated for a moment before taking it.  “What’s this?” she asked, craning her neck to look up at Peter Watkins, the casino manager.  The middle-aged man wore his usual broadcast-smile—the one that showed most of his teeth without showing the dental work in his molars.  However, for a middle-aged man, he was in pretty good shape—something he liked to show off, wearing very tailored shirts and slacks.

Mr. Watkins stepped away, digging his hands, deep into his pockets, affecting his casual stance that, to her, seemed entirely rehearsed and not at all naturally graceful.  He was a decent looking man, of course—well groomed, very friendly-looking—but he struck her as the kind of man who had always lingered, just a few steps away from ‘cool’, kind of like she always had.  “It’s your invitation to the casino gala.  You are coming, aren’t you?”

Frowning as she turned the envelope over in her hand, she bit her lip.  A formal gala?  Yeah, that didn’t really sound like a good time to her, either, given that she really didn’t want to have to spring for a dress that she’d only wear one time, and finding one that would cover all of her that she wanted to be covered?  ‘ _Good luck_ ,’ she thought to herself with a decisive snort.  “Oh, uh, I don’t know,” she hedged.  “I’ll have to see . . .”

Mr. Watkins chuckled.  “You have to be there,” he told her, rubbing his chin as though he were trying to decide if he needed a shave or not.  “As the new cashier manager, you want to promote a healthy work environment, right?”

“R . . . Right,” she muttered, setting the envelope aside.  “Absolutely, sir.”

“Oh, please!  Just call me Peter.  You’re management now, after all.”

He didn’t wait for a response from her as he turned and strode away, leaving her in the quiet of her office once more.

It wasn’t a big office, but it was comfortable.  Kelly had one little African violet that she’d brought in after finding it, sitting it outside of a trash bin behind the florist’s shop a block from her apartment.  It was rather pathetic, listless and wilted, shriveled and browning on the leaves, and for some reason, she’d wanted it.  She’d taken it home, given it some plant food, made sure that it stayed hydrated, and, slowly, it had come back to life.  When she’d gotten the promotion to cashier manager, she’d brought it in, and now, it sat on the desk.

With a sigh, she slit the envelope open with the tip of a claw and tugged the invitation free.  ‘ _You are cordially invited to the Lucky Starr Casino Open Tables Gala,_ ’ it said.  As far as she knew, it was strictly for employees of the casino and its sister hotel, The Starr Oasis Hotel that was right next door.  It was being held for the employees and their families, with a portion of the winnings of the night, going to charity, but there would also be a dinner as well as dancing and a few door prizes given out, stuff like that.  She’d heard it being talked about, but she couldn’t say she’d paid much attention.  After all, it wasn’t something that interested her, and if she could get out of it, she probably would.

‘ _Except you’re management, even if you’re not upper management, which means that you probably will have to attend._ ’

Wrinkling her nose at the sound of her youkai-voice’s cryptic commentary, Kelly stifled a sigh.  Sitting around all night, making small talk with people she didn’t know and didn’t rightfully care about?  It didn’t sound even remotely fun; not in the least.  It might have been something she’d have looked forward to before, but these days?  Something like this meant that she’d have to shop for something suitable to wear, and clothes shopping was never, ever high on her list of things she wanted to do.  It was hard enough to find things that covered her in a way that allowed her to feel at least a little less conspicuous, but when it came to formal or semi-formal evening wear?  It sounded like a nightmare, actually . . .

‘ _Kelly Hendricks and Guest,_ ’ it read.  RSVP, of course.  She did sigh this time.

The chime of her cell phone drew her out of her bleak thoughts, and she snatched it up, only to see Cartham’s name pop up on the screen, and she slid her thumb over it to unlock it.

‘ _I bought you a gun,_ ’ the text message said.  She blinked and stared at the picture he’d sent.  Oh, it was a gun, all right: a small handgun that was all black except for the grip that happened to be hot pink.  Hot pink.

She shook her head.  ‘ _Yeah, that’s cute,_ ’ she texted back.  ‘ _I don’t think I need a gun, though._ ’

‘ _Don’t be goofy.  Of course, you need one.  You’re a single woman, living alone in a potentially dangerous place.  You need a gun.  Will drop it off and teach you to shoot next time I’m in Vegas._ ’

‘ _I’m not paying for a gun, Cartham_ ,’ she warned.

‘ _Don’t worry about it.  It’s a gift—and it’s for your own safety._ ’

‘ _When I think of gifts, I think of flowers or music or candy or something.  A gun is not a gift, and if you think that it is, then you need to seriously reassess your gifting habits._ ’

His reply was an emoji with a grin and the tongue stuck out.  She snorted.

She blew out a deep breath, strong enough to lift her bangs off of her forehead, as she sat back and dropped the phone onto her desk, ignoring the unbidden sense of anticipation at the idea of him, alluding to the next time he was in town.  She had no business, feeling that, now did she?

She sighed.

‘ _At least he cares about your safety,_ ’ her youkai pointed out reasonably.

‘ _Yeah . . . I wonder if Cain told him to buy that,_ ’ she mused darkly.

‘ _Don’t be stupid.  Cain’s not the type to encourage gun use, you know.  Otherwise, don’t you think he’d have insisted that Belle learn how to use one?_ ’

The phone sounded again, and she picked it up, almost nervous about whatever message he’d sent this time.  ‘ _I looked up ranges near you.  There’s one not too far, maybe twenty minutes away.  Website looks good._ ’

‘ _You know, I think that gun’s a little too pink for me,_ ’ she tapped in.  ‘ _Guns shouldn’t be precious, should they?_ ’

‘ _You don’t like pink?  ‘Kay.  They have purple and light blue, too.  You could get one of each.  You know, color coordinate with your outfits and all that._ ’

“Color coordin—Ugh,” she muttered in disbelief.  Biting her lip, she frowned.  ‘ _I don’t really need a gun,_ ’ she wrote back.  ‘ _Even if I did, do you think I could really shoot someone?  Because I don’t see that happening._ ’

‘ _You know, you really shouldn’t have to shoot anyone.  Usually, just making sure that someone sees it is enough to get them to back down.  Of course, you’ll have to learn how to shoot it because you have to know how to handle it, and, in the event that you run into someone who doesn’t get the hint just from seeing it, well . . ._ ’

Kelly scowled.  Firing a gun?  Nope, she had to admit that it wasn’t really on her bucket list; not even close.

Her youkai-voice laughed.  ‘ _Yeah, but have you stopped to consider it?_ ’

‘ _Consider what?_ ’

The voice made a sound that told Kelly that if it had a body of its own, it’d be rolling the eyes.  ‘ _Just think about it, Kel.  He’s worried about your welfare, right?  And that’s a good thing, you know_.’

She made a face, mostly because it seemed awfully counter-intuitive, as far as she was concerned.  Putting a weapon into someone’s hands that could potentially end another life?  How was that protective?

‘ _Went ahead and registered us and booked a few hours for this weekend since you mentioned that you’re off.  I’ve got a hunt to take care of, but it shouldn’t be a big thing.  Cool?_ ’

Kelly blinked as she read Cartham’s latest text, smashing her hand over her belly as an unbidden brigade of butterflies erupted inside her.  It was the first time that he’d mentioned in advance that he would be in town, and for some reason, the idea almost made her feel . . .

Before she could finish that thought, though, she deliberately slammed the door on it.  Something about it . . .

Something about it scared her—and thrilled her, too.

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _You bought her . . . a gun . . ._ ’

Frowning thoughtfully as he gazed down at the weapon in question, nestled in the protective case that had come with it, Cartham picked it up, gave it a good look-over.  He’d exchanged the pink one for the purple since Kelly hadn’t seemed to be too impressed with that, and he’d already checked it out, having already spent the morning, testing it out on some hay bales set up behind the house.  It wasn’t bad, as far as precision went.  A Rinhaus 650 Slimline Elite, the very latest model from a relatively new company. As far as it went, it was just a modified 9mm Short—the three-eighty ACP.  It was tiny but decently powerful, compact enough to easily be carried in a purse or bag, though if he had his way, she’d wear it in a holster at all times.

‘ _If you honestly think she’s going to do any such thing, you’re loopy._ ’

‘ _Eh, once she figures out that she’s safer with it, then she’ll want to wear it.  It’s for her own good, and she’ll realize that, too, once she gets comfortable with it._ ’

‘ _Dream on, Cartham.  That’s just wishful thinking._ ’

‘ _It’s for her own safety, and she’ll see that, too._ ’

The tap on the door drew him out of his reverie, and he stood up to answer it.

“Here’s the kit,” Cain said, holding out a nondescript black bag when Cartham opened the door.  He took it and grunted something semi-intelligible as he turned away from the door and dropped the bag onto the table nearby.

“You’re not going to check it?”

“I’m sure you already did,” Cartham remarked.

“That . . . is a very purple gun, Cartham,” Cain said, frowning at the gun in the case on the table that was still sitting, open.  “I’m going to assume it isn’t for you.”

Cartham grunted.  “It’s for Kelly.”

“. . . For Kelly.”

“Aiyuh.”

Nodding slowly, Cain seemed to think that it was an acceptable answer, and he assumed his normal casual stance.  “Okay . . . Anyway, the intel we have is that your target’s going to be flying into Dallas late tomorrow, so it’d be easiest if you’re there to intercept him, follow him, and take care of him then.  I went ahead and made the arrangements for your flight.  It leaves at five tonight, so you’ve got plenty of time to get to the airport.”

Cartham gave a curt nod since it should be an easier hunt than the norm, given that they had the jump on him.  That aside, however, he frowned.  “I tell you I got a gun for Kelly, and you blow it off like it’s yesterday’s news?”

Cain blinked, looked from side to side in mild confusion for a moment, before shaking his head slowly.  “I didn’t . . . I just assumed you’d take the time to teach her about them, so, I’m not worried.  Should I be . . .?”

“No,” he replied.  “I mean, yeah, I was going to do all that . . .”

Cain shrugged.  “I figured.  Still, do you really think Kelly’s going to be okay with a gun?”

“What do you mean?”

Cain pushed the lid down till it clicked before leveling a dark look at the hunter.  “I mean, we’re talking about Kelly, and she might not be perfect, but she’s also not necessarily the kind who would be comfortable, _packing heat_ or however you say it.”

Opting not to comment on Cain’s choice of words, Cartham made a face.  “It’s for her own good,” he insisted.  “Vegas is a dangerous place.  I read the papers, and it’s always about muggings and robberies and crime . . . Attacks on people, especially women . . .”

“Yeah, but carrying a gun, accepting the idea that you could physically hurt someone, maybe even kill them . . .?  I’m not entirely sure that a girl like Kelly could or would even _want_ that kind of responsibility.”

Cartham frowned since he’d already thought as much.  Even so, more and more often of late, he’d stayed awake, well into the night, as his imagination had laid out scenario after scenario of Kelly in danger, of her, left completely unprotected where he couldn’t get to her to help her in time . . .

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted stubbornly.  “That girl . . . She’s out there alone, got no one, and if she wants to be independent, great, but if that’s how she wants it, then she needs to know how to protect herself, too.”

Cain blinked, leaned back slightly, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at Cartham, blue eyes, clouding in slight suspicion.  It was the classic tai-youkai look, if ever Cartham had seen it, and he’d seen it pretty often over the years.  It meant that Cain was either very close to figuring something out or he thought he was, anyway.

“I see,” Cain said, nodding slowly, as though something made perfect sense.

Cartham smothered a growl.  “I don’t know what you think you see, Zelig, but all I’m saying is that she needs to have some way to protect herself.  That’s all.  That’s it.  There’s no other reason, so—”

“’The lady doth protest too much, methinks’.”

Cartham grunted.  “You calling me a lady?”

Cain rolled his eyes.  “It’s a quote, and you know it.  Now you’re just trying to deflect me, and it’s not going to work.  If it matters, though, I’m glad you care about her.  She’s a good kid.  Kind of brings out the dad feelings, huh?”

Cartham snapped his mouth closed on the retort that had been forming, even as hot color exploded in his cheeks, and he turned away before Cain could get a good look at his face.  Fatherly feelings?  He almost snorted out loud, but managed to stop himself before he uttered the sound.  “Yeah, something like that,” he muttered, pacing across the floor, scowling out the window.

Cain chuckled.  “Well, I’m going to get going.  You probably need to get your gear ready and take off, too.  Be careful, hunter.”

Cartham nodded and waved over his shoulder as Cain turned to leave.  A minute later, the front door opened and closed, and he sighed.

Fatherly feelings?

He frowned.  He wasn’t entirely sure, just what kind of feelings he had for Kelly Hendricks, but he knew well enough that ‘fatherly’ didn’t really cover it.

‘ _Are you sure you don’t know?_ ’

He grunted, but didn’t answer that.  In truth, he really wasn’t sure, how to answer that.

Except that he didn’t think of Kelly as a little girl at all.

And he wasn’t entirely sure that he was ready to try to delve deeper into it.

Not yet, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

Kelly let out a deep breath as she settled back on the bed and held the cell phone in her hands.  It was almost eleven pm, which meant that it might be somewhere around three in the afternoon in Tokyo time.

Funny how her hands were shaking just a little as she stared at the device.

She’d had a dream the other night.  She’d dreamt that Belle was searching for her which was entirely silly, given that Cain knew well enough, just where she was.  Even so, there was a sadness around Belle that felt too real, too clear, even in a dream, and she’d been thinking about it all day.

She missed her, and, more importantly, she really should try to explain because Belle . . . Well, none of Kelly’s feelings had ever been Belle’s fault.  She hadn’t done anything wrong, had only really ever been just a very best friend.  It was Kelly’s own depression that had created the divide that still existed.

She didn’t know whether it was necessary or not.  In a way, she couldn’t help but to feel guilty because Belle really had gone out of her way to help her, and she most certainly had not deserved to be pushed away, and yet, she’d be lying if she didn’t know that there was a certain part of her—a part of her that had absolutely needed that space that she’d created, too.  It was the part of her that she despised, wasn’t it?  That she could be so callous as to push away her best friend—the best friend she’d ever had or ever would have—and now . . .

And now, taking that step to bridge that gap?  It was hard, so hard . . .

The phone chimed in her hand, and she gasped softly, even as Cartham’s name appeared, and she slid her thumb over the screen to answer it.  “Hey.”

“Yeah, you okay?” he asked without preamble.  Something in his tone . . .

She frowned at the words, and bit her lip.  “I’m . . . I’m fine,” she said.  “Why?”

Cartham grunted.  In the background, she could hear a lot of commotion, almost as though he were in a public place, even if she had no idea, where he was.  “I . . . I dunno.  I just felt like you . . .” He let out a deep breath that wasn’t exactly a sigh, but it wasn’t exactly _not_ one, either.  “I thought maybe you were, uh, upset . . .”

“Oh, well . . . I mean, I guess . . . I was just . . . Just thinking about calling . . . Belle . . .”

“Oh, I see,” he replied.  He sounded somewhat relieved.  “You want to call her?”

“Yeah . . . and no . . .”

“Aight . . . You wanna explain?”

She sighed, scooting down in the bed, pulling up her blankets as she settled in.  “I . . . I kind of pushed her away.  I mean, you know about that.  That’s why Cain sent you out here the first time, right?  And . . . And I didn’t mean to.  It just . . .”

“Just happened.”

She nodded, not that he could see it, because he couldn’t, of course.  “Yeah, and . . . She didn’t deserve that.  I shouldn’t have . . .”

Clearing his throat, Cartham uttered a sound that was akin to an agreement.  “I’m pretty old, you realize.”

Blinking at the abrupt change in topics, Kelly tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear.  “Okay?”

“I learned, you know?  Sometimes, we do things because they’re what we need at a given time.  You . . . You needed the space, didn’t you?  Part of why you took off from Maine, right?  So, maybe you’re ready to close the distance that you needed then because you, uh, don’t need it now.”

She thought that over, contemplated her mild surprise that he had just put into words what she’d been struggling to do all day.  She wasn’t sure how he’d done that, but it was comforting to know that someone else understood what she felt—and a little frightening, too.

“What you felt back then?  I get it,” he went on, his rumbling tone, taking on a slightly philosophical lilt.  “Back when my parents died . . . I didn’t know how to deal with that, either.  I was sent to live with my old man’s sister and her mate, and . . . and I pushed them away—well, never really let them in, I guess.  I was angry, and maybe you weren’t, maybe you were, too . . . But I understand it.  Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to get through the day.”

She sighed, caught somewhere between the will to smile, and the inexplicable tears that suddenly choked her as they filled her eyes but didn’t spill over.  “How?” she croaked out and then cleared her throat.  “How do you know this?  Know me?”

He sighed.  “I-I wasn’t trying to be presumptuous,” he muttered, sounding almost as though he might well be embarrassed.  “It’s just . . . I see you, and then, I remember . . .”

She sniffled, hurriedly dashed her hand over her eyes.  “Cartham?”

“Yeah?”

“I . . . I’m glad you called tonight.”

He grunted something that made no sense before adding, “I, uh . . . I gotta go.  I’m kind of in the middle of a job right now, but I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Okay,” she replied.  “Be safe.”

“Aiyuh.”

The connection ended, and yet, Kelly smiled to herself as she set the phone aside on the night stand.  She’d call Belle soon.  Maybe she’d wait till after Cartham’s visit.  Maybe she’d have even better perspective by then, and besides, she’d like to consider things a little while longer before she tried to put her emotions into words for Belle’s benefit.

Leaning over to flick off the lamp, she then settled in, closing her eyes as the smile on her face widened just a little.  How was it that Cartham had managed to calm her thoughts so much and so easily?

She didn’t know, but she was content that he had.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, Las Vegas is entirely unnatural.”

Raising her eyebrows as she glanced up from the strawberry milkshake she was sipping as they wandered down the busy boulevard near the park that she seemed to favor, she pinned Cartham with a droll kind of look.  “How’s that?”

He shrugged, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans, scowling slightly at the very bright sun that was blasting down on them.  “Eighty-eight degrees in the middle of September?  That’s unnatural,” he said.

Kelly rolled her eyes, but laughed softly.  “Yeah, but if it was cooler, then you wouldn’t like this as much,” she said, shoving the shake under his nose so abruptly and so close that he jerked back to avoid getting the straw shoved, right up his nose.

He took it and sucked down a few swallows.  He couldn’t say he was a big fan of sweet things like that, but this one?  It was frothy and creamy and really, really flavorful without being too saccharine.

‘ _You also aren’t a fan of sharing , well,_ anything _,_ ’ his youkai-voice pointed out.  ‘ _You never, ever drink after anyone else, but here you are, trading sips with Kelly . . ._ ’

He grunted at that assessment, but he didn’t argue it, either.  “Back home, it’s already starting to cool off.  Trees are all colorful and that . . . The palm trees here are still green.”

Kelly sighed.  “I do kind of miss fall,” she admitted with a little shrug.  “But I . . .”

Cartham nodded.  “You’re doing good here,” he finished for her.  “You . . . You really are, aren’t you?”

She gave another shrug, and he had to wonder, just what she was thinking.  The dry breeze lifted her light brown hair that was hanging free.  In the sunlight, he could see the golden streaks that only really showed in certain lighting, and the smell of it, like the gentlest rain in the springtime, wafted to him.  Staring down at her hands, clasped demurely before her, she was thinking about something, and, while she didn’t seem entirely unhappy, she did seem to be pensive.  “When I was in Maine, I just kept . . . kept thinking that I was stuck, like everything was too familiar, too . . . _stifling_ . . .”

“And you don’t feel that way here,” he said.  It wasn’t a question.

She bit her lip, lifted her chin to stare off into the distance.  “I needed this,” she admitted.  “I needed it more than I ever thought I did.  I can . . . I can _breathe_ here.”

That made sense.  Though it was true that he really didn’t know what she’d gone through, he had a feeling that it had a lot to do with her own overwhelming sense that her world had been skewed, even as far back as the date of that fire, and maybe she hadn’t run away as much as she’d gotten the courage to go out and look for her new reality.

‘ _And you wanna be a part of that reality, don’t you?_ ’

Something about that question gave him pause.  What was it about it that scared him more than anything else ever had?  Even when he was a boy, after he’d lost his parents, he’d never felt that sense of fear, not then.  He supposed, looking back, that he’d been too angry to care, and that anger had masked any other emotion that he might have felt.  But the strange sense of fear now?

‘ _It’s because this one is important, Cartham.  You know it, and I know it.  We don’t have to put a name on it or try to explain it yet.  It’s enough that she’s vital to us, and if you’re afraid, that’s why._ ’

He blinked away his reverie when she pulled the shake out of his hand.  “I . . . I haven’t called Belle yet,” she finally said.  “I’m going to,” she went on with a shrug. “I figured I’d wait till after you leave again.”

He wondered if she realized that she’d sighed after the mention of him, leaving, but he didn’t remark upon it.  “No rush,” he said, brushing that aside.  “Just do it when you feel like it’s the right time.”

“Well, it’s not that,” she admitted, casting him a small and rather sheepish grin.  “It’s more that, when we talk, we tend to talk for hours.  Oh, and, here . . .”

She pulled an envelope out of her purse and handed it to him.  He took it and stashed it in the inner pocket of his jacket without bothering to check the contents.  “Thanks.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Cartham!  That’s the last of what I owe you—well, except for the cell phone.  Go ahead.  Count it.”

“I’m not counting it while we’re walking around out here,” he told her.  “I believe you, but you really didn’t have to rush.”

“I wanted to pay you back,” she countered.  “Does this mean I’ll never see you again since I don’t owe you anymore?”

Cartham grunted.  She’d tried for a nonchalant tone of voice.  He hadn’t missed the slight surge in her youki, however—the almost nervous palpitations that he could feel.  “I dunno,” he replied, affecting a casual demeanor.  “I . . . I kind of like Las Vegas . . . Certain things around here, anyway . . .”

He could feel her gaze upon him, but he was careful to keep his averted.  “Do you?” she finally asked in an almost bemused intonation.  “Did . . .?  Did Cain send you out here this time?”

“Nope,” he admitted, which was the truth.  “The hunt was in Texas, so it never came up.  I just figured, you know, close enough.”

She stopped abruptly, and he did, too.  She had a strange kind of expression on her face, her eyebrows, drawn together as she bit her lip and stared at him.  It was almost as though she were trying to read his mind, and he shrugged.  “Texas was close enough to Vegas?” she asked slowly, almost as though she were in complete disbelief.

He shrugged again.  “Closer than Maine.”

She stared at him for another long moment, eyes narrowing slightly at his offhanded answer.

And then, she laughed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’  Quote from **Hamlet** by William Shakespeare_.
> 
> **_== == == == == == == == == ==_ **
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> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_AO3  
> _** Calvarez ——— minthegreen ——— TheWonderfulShoe ——— cutechick18 ——— Elizabeth ——— monsterkittie ——— Megan
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> **_Final Thought from Cartham_** :  
>  _Texas isn’t that far from Las Vegas_ …


	10. Lessons

“Okay, before you do anything, you always need to check over your equipment, and you need to do a maintenance check at least once a week.  I’ll teach you how to clean it after your lesson on the firing range,” Cartham said, steering Kelly toward the gun shop where he was taking her to set the gun’s safety mechanism.  They also needed to fill out the paperwork to register the weapon, too.  Kelly had talked him out of applying for the concealed carry permit since she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that, but he had insisted that she get one once she was more comfortable with the weapon, in general.

She’d given up, trying to reason with him.  She’d spent the better part of three hours last night, trying to explain to him that she really didn’t need to learn how to fire a gun, at all.  He simply wasn’t going to hear of it, and didn’t that just figure?

And yet, as infuriating as it was that he simply didn’t want to listen to her on this, the idea that he was that adamant that she be protected was not lost on her, either.  It was that alone that had convinced her to let him drag her all over Vegas so early on a Saturday morning, especially when he’d had the gall to wake her up at six a.m., banging on her bedroom door, which had almost been enough to make her demand that he go find a hotel when she was the one who had insisted that he stay with her, in the first place.

The gun shop carried the faint scent of the ammunition it carried, of gun oil and that sharp odor of metal.  All of the guns were carefully kept in locked display cases that were likely bulletproof.  The wall behind the cash registers were lined with boxes of ammunition, also behind secured glass.  Glancing around as Cartham stepped over to the counter to speak to the attendant, she took note of the security cameras installed everywhere, the alarm system by the door.

“You’ll need a good gun safe,” Cartham remarked as he stepped back over to her.  “This case is nice, but it’s not nearly secure enough, so I’ll call around to see about getting one for you later.  Anyway, the manager’s on a call, but he knows we’re here, and he’ll get to us in a minute.”

She shot him a rather flat look.  “You’re buying me breakfast after this, aren’t you?” she asked rather pointedly.

He chuckled, and his smile only served to carve those dimples into his cheeks—cheeks that could use a good shave if he didn’t look so damn nice with that light sheen of stubble.  Her heart lurched suddenly, and she forced her gaze to the side.  “I like breakfast,” he agreed.

She was saved from replying when the manager—a squat little man, decked out in jeans and a sports jacket—hurried over.  “Sorry to keep you waiting!  I’m Harvey Bush.”

“I’m Cartham, and this is Kelly,” Cartham said, shaking the man’s hand.

“Now, let’s get everything set up for you!  Come with me!”

They followed him over to a door on the side near the registers.  He sat down behind the desk and reached for the metal case Cartham was carrying.

Cartham pressed his thumb against the lock release, and the case popped open, revealing the ridiculously purple gun.  Mr. Bush laughed, and Kelly stifled a sigh.

Mr. Bush keyed the serial number into his computer after entering his credentials to access the nationwide secured network created expressly for gun registry.

“Okay, I see that the information has been mostly filled in on this—Kelly Hendricks . . . address, phone number, date of birth . . . Looks like I just need your driver’s license and your social security number—and your thumbprint, of course.”

She dug the license and social security card out and handed them over.  Cartham had explained to her that the gun’s safety mechanism prevented anyone other than the printed user and anyone they authorized to use the gun to fire it.  It was something they implemented a few years ago to try to curb gun violence.  So far, it had worked pretty well, given that all guns were made with grips that were programmed only to fire for those with recognized access to that given weapon.  In her case, that would be Cartham and her, so even if someone else got their hands on it, they couldn’t use it because the only way to change the access was at a registered gun seller, like this one.

“Okay,” Mr. Bush said, handing back her license and social security cards.  Then, he pushed a fingerprint reader toward her.  “Now, are you right handed or left?”

“Oh, right,” she replied, pulling the device a little closer.

“All right, then we need your right hand prints.  We’ll start with the thumb—now.”

She did as he instructed, providing the prints of all of her fingers, logged by the computer.

“Done,” he said, sparing a moment to cast her a hurried grin before turning his attention back to the computer once more.  “It’s going to take a minute for your print to be sent to the case and the gun, but once that’s done, we’re finished, unless you want to apply for the concealed carry permit?”

She glanced at Cartham, and he shrugged.  “She’s all right for now,” he said.  “She’ll come back if she wants the permit.”

“That’s fine,” he replied, pushing in the keyboard shelf on the desk before turning his attention back to her.  The case beeped, and he reached out to close the lid.  “All right, Kelly, if you would press your thumb against the sensor for two seconds to make sure it releases, then I’d say you’re all set!”

She did, and the lock released.

“There you go!” He handed her a business card.  “Give me a call if and when you want to apply for that permit.  It’s really nothing more than a couple of signatures since we already have all your information.

She nodded, slipping the card into a pocket inside the gun case before snapping it closed again.  “Okay.  Thanks.”

Cartham stood up and took the case as Kelly got to her feet.  “Thanks,” Cartham said, reaching over to shake Mr. Bush’s hand again.  Then, he led her out of the office.  “Now, you need some bullets . . . Do you want a holster?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied.  “Do we really have to go to the range today?  Can’t we do that some other time?  Like six months or so from now?”

“Ha ha,” he muttered, dragging her over to look at the cleaning kits.  “You’re not getting out of it, missy.”

She sighed, long and loud.  Somehow, she hadn’t figured that he’d allow it, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Scowling in concentration as she steadied her hands and tried to clear her mind, Kelly carefully took aim and deftly pulled the trigger.  This time, she didn’t flinch as the bullet was discharged—it was really hard, not to.  She managed to hit closest to the center of the target as she had thus far, so that, in her estimation, was a pretty good improvement.

Carefully lowering the gun, setting it back into the gun case that was laying open on the waist-high counter, Kelly let out a deep breath and pulled the earphones off her head as she slowly spun on her heel to face Cartham, waiting in silence for his assessment.  There were twenty other booths in the facility, and Cartham had mentioned that the Las Vegas police department used this range pretty exclusively, but today, it was early enough that they were the only ones there, which was probably a good thing since the sound of other people, firing guns, might have been a little daunting during her first lesson.

He was slower to pull off his headphones, and he hung onto them as they dangled around his neck.  “Not bad.  You need more practice, but that’s probably enough for today.  The trigger’s a little stiff on that one, and your hands are small, so I imagine it aches a little.”

Kelly didn’t comment as she slowly flexed her right hand.  Her index finger really did feel pretty stiff, and the tendons were protesting the movement, but she knelt down to retrieve the spent casings since the list of guidelines for the use of the firing range included the collection of such things.

“You did pretty good though, especially for your first time,” he added, sounding thoughtful.  “Keep practicing, and you’ll be a deadeye.”

She sighed, reaching up to brace herself on the shelf and to help push herself to her feet once more.  “I’m telling you, Cartham, I’ll never be able to point this thing at a person—at any living thing—and pull that trigger.”

To her surprise, he chuckled.  “All the same, you need to have some kind of protection, and I’m guessing you’d rather not learn how to fight.  Or would you?”

“Fight?” she echoed before she could stop herself, pinning him with an incredulous stare.  “As in, physical fighting?”

He nodded, hitting the button that pulled out a new paper target.  “I could teach you, if you’d prefer.  I’d rather that you master this, though.  No one’s going to argue with a girl who’s got a gun.”

She let out a deep breath that blew her bangs straight up off her forehead.  “Cartham . . .”

She trailed off when he unsnapped the button that held his gun secured in the holster and drew it in one fluid motion, bringing it up, taking careful aim, and firing off about four shots in quick succession that hit the target dead center and only left one slightly larger hole than the first one, all in a matter of seconds.

“How did you do that?” she blurted before she could stop herself as she peered around his rather beefy arms.

“Do what?”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Draw and aim and fire that fast,” she explained.  “That was . . . That was . . .”

‘ _Hot?_ ’ her youkai-voice added helpfully.

‘ _Uh . . . Uh huh . . . Un, no!  No, no, no, no, no!_ ’

‘ _Hell, yeah!  I mean,_ da-a-a-a-amn . . .!’

‘ _Well, yes, but no . . . No, I can_ not _say that out loud, so shut_ u-u-u-u-up!’

“It-It-It was . . . That was . . . That was amazing.”

He blinked, turned his head to stare down at her as though he were trying to decide if she was pulling his leg.  He caught her stare and didn’t look away as her breath caught somewhere deep in her chest.  Something intense in the depths of those violet eyes, in those rugged yet still youthful features . . . Even so, the intensity of his gaze was mesmerizing, and she felt her mouth, open and close a few times, but no sound came from her, no words would form . . .

And the seconds stretched out into the most tenuous of moments, of minutes, of a time that existed without a clock, without a changing of cadence.  Nothing made sense, nothing seemed to permeate the fog that had engulfed her brain.  It was as though he were trying to tell her something, saying something that she was just two steps behind in comprehending, and it felt like she ought to know, but yet . . .

His eyes slowly dropped to her lips, lingering there before they slipped back up to meet hers once more, and this time, the raw longing that lit his stare was clear and absolutely hypnotizing . . .

It was maddening, really.  The strange sort of electricity in the air seemed to permeate everything around them, such a dizzying feeling that she knew deep down that something had to give, that something had to happen or she would end up, going mad.  The sound of his blood, pumping through his body—or was it her own?—seemed to thunder in her ears.  As though unaware of his own actions, he reached out, so gently pushed her hair back, hooked it behind her ear, but his fingertips lingered against her cheek, sending the most inebriating current, straight through her from such simple contact, an overwhelming sense of emotion that nearly made her knees buckle.  He could see her—only her—and it was evident in the way his fingers shook just the slightest bit that what she was feeling . . . He was, too.

And that one moment seemed to spin on and on in such a mystifying sense of prolonged agony tinged with a chaotic whirl of the senses that slipped through the silken strands of her mind before she could catch them, to savor them, to file them away to mull over later.  She wanted to keep them, to cherish them, but the moment was fleeting, terrible, beautiful, all at once . . .

And then, he cleared his throat, and just that simply, the moment was lost.  Stuffing his gun back into the holster, he took what felt like a long, long time, securing the weapon before reaching for his jacket that was hanging off a hook on the wall.  “We, uh . . . We’ll practice again the . . . the next time I’m in town,” he offered without looking at her.  To her ears, he sounded a little gruffer than normal, a little rougher.  “You did good for your first time.”

She had to clear her throat, too, and her hands were visibly shaking.  Somehow, the idea of her first time wasn’t lost on her, either, and she wondered vaguely if it he had felt it, too . . . Something so much deeper, so much more profound than she’d ever felt before . . .

And, as crazy as it was, she had a feeling that he . . .

That he had felt it, too . . .

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _You’re stupid—_ really _stupid.  So stupid that I just don’t even think I want to be your youkai-voice anymore.  Have I mentioned just how stupid you are? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!_ ’

Stifling the urge to growl at his annoying youkai-voice, Cartham deliberately concentrated on cleaning the barrel of his gun instead.  ‘ _Shut up._ ’

‘ _In my next life, I want to be paired up with someone who isn’t as stupid as you, Cartham, just so you know.  I can’t believe you passed that up.  How stupid are you, seriously?_ ’

‘ _I wasn’t being stupid.  I was being noble.  There’s a huge difference there, and you really ought to know that much._ ’

‘ _Nope, just stupidity at its finest.  There wasn’t a damn thing ‘noble’ about it, just so you know.  Damn, you’re such a wiener._ ’

Setting the cleaned gun aside for the moment as he gathered up the contents of his kit, Cartham grunted derisively, but opted not to respond to that.  After all, what was the point, especially when a very large part of him actually agreed with that.

 _That look on her face, the absolute sense of vulnerability that she didn’t even try to hide, even as the emotions flickered to life in her eyes_ . . .

He let out a deep breath and pushed himself to his feet, retrieving his gun to put it away again.  As he passed by the doorway to the kitchen, he heard Kelly, humming softly to herself while she washed the dinner dishes.  He’d offered to help, but she’d told him in no uncertain terms to go away.  He had cleared the table and put away the leftover lasagna that they’d picked up at a nearby Italian place along with some fresh bread sticks.  It was probably one of the best ones he’d had, ever, though, if he stopped to consider it, that might well have had more to do with the company he was keeping than it did with the meal itself . . .

After securing the gun back into the holster, Cartham ambled off to the kitchen to see if Kelly was about finished, but he stopped short when he got a good look at her—or, more precisely, her arms.  She’d pushed her long sleeves up out of the way.  It was the first time he’d actually seen any part of her, he realized with a jolt, other than her face, her hands.  The scarring he could make out seemed to run the length of her arm, disappearing under the sleeve cuffs that were gathered just below her elbows and extended down her hands, albeit in a much thinner line.  Those scars were much pinker than her normal skin tone, but they were too straight to be anything other than residual scarring from her skin grafts, and, in that moment, he understood.

She hated them, didn’t she?  Hated to look at them, hated for others to see them, too, and if she had them on other parts of her body, he could understand that well enough.  They didn’t bother him, no, other than the idea that they could potentially still be painful for her, but for Kelly?  Just how badly did the sight of those scars trouble her?  Given that he’d never seen her wear anything that didn’t completely cover her, he had to guess that they bothered her a lot, and even that was likely an understatement.  And he had a suspicion that those scars were also a lot of the reason why she’d opted to run away, in the first place, too . . .

The scowl on his face attested more to his thoughts than to his reaction as he ambled forward, reaching for a dish towel to start drying without a word.  He could feel her instantly stiffen beside him, watched without a word as she dropped the plate she was washing in favor of shaking down her sleeves, trying to hide her arms from him, he guessed, even though she had to know he’d already seen them.

“Your sleeves are going to get wet,” he rumbled, purposefully striving for a nonchalant kind of tone.

“Oh, uh . . . It’s . . . It’s okay,” she muttered.

He’d have to be stupid not to sense her acute discomfort, and if he didn’t do something fast, there was a good chance she might just freak out on him, and he knew it.  “Those the scars from your skin grafts?” he asked, ignoring the tiny voice that was insisting that bringing it up so abruptly might well have the opposite effect of what he was going for.

“Y-Yeah,” she stammered, plunging her hand into the soapy water to retrieve the plate.  Her hands were working in overtime as she scrubbed it furiously.

“I’ve never burnt myself like that,” he admitted almost philosophically, “but I imagine that it hurt like a bitch . . . You don’t still hurt, do you?”

For a moment, he didn’t think she was going to answer.  Finally, though, she did.  “Sometimes, they . . . twinge a little . . .”

He nodded slowly, reaching for a glass to dry.  “Are you hiding yourself, Kel?”

He was pushing his luck, but for some reason, he had a gut feeling that she needed to say it all out loud, even if she didn’t want to do any such thing.  “I . . . I look like Frankenstein,” she grumbled.  “Like a weird, patchwork quilt or something.  They said the scars would fade eventually, but . . .”

“Then they will,” he assured her.

She was having none of it.  “Yeah, sure.  Just give it another . . . hundred years, right . . .?  And until then, everyone who sees them thinks I’m some kind of sideshow freak, like I did it to myself or . . . ” She sighed.  “Maybe I . . . I really did . . .”

He shrugged.  It bothered him more than he could credit, to hear her talk that way, and yet . . . “I think you look like a girl who’s been through a hell of a lot,” he told her.  “More than most grown-ass men—definitely more than you should have had to.”

She sighed.  “You have no idea,” she said, her voice seeming to thicken as emotion tightened around her.  “Everyone stares at you like you’re some kind of creeper, like you’re some kind of _monster_ . . . and then, you look in the mirror, and it’s not even you that you see.  It’s someone who kind of looks like you, but it’s not your face.  Everything just . . . just slightly _off_ , and . . .” Trailing off as she choked a little, she quickly shook her head, ducked her chin, making it impossible for him to actually see her countenance at all.  “And you _hate_ it,” she added in a whisper.  “You . . . You hate _yourself_ . . . because you . . . You . . . You . . .”

“You, what?”

She heaved a tumultuous sigh, as though she were trying to make sense of things, but couldn’t.  “It . . . It was my own fault,” she admitted in a quiet whisper.  “I was high, and I was careless . . . Mad at my parents because they’d grounded me for sneaking out one night, and . . . and if I had just . . .” Wincing, she waved a hand, as though to dismiss her entire line of thinking, and Cartham had to wonder if it weren’t the first time she’d actually said any of this out loud.

“Accidents are never anyone’s fault,” he told her.  “The brain tries its damndest to convince you otherwise, but it’s true.  There’s no truth to it, no reason behind it.  It happened, and your only real job is to decide if you’re going to let it beat you . . . or if you’re going to get over it, get past it, and find your own way out of it.”

“If it were that easy,” she grumbled, her anger, spiking in the invisible surge of her youki.  “Belle said that it doesn’t define me, that I’m going to be fine now, and every time she tried to give me that pep talk of hers, I . . . I resented her just a little more.  She didn’t know, and . . . and I didn’t want her to know, but . . . but . . .”

“But . . . some part of you can’t stand her because she isn’t suffering with you, right?”

The deadly accuracy of his quiet statement forced a soft groan from her.  “No!  Yes . . . Maybe . . . I just . . .” she flinched.  “And . . . And every time I think that?  I . . . Oh, my God!  I _hate_ myself because I love her, and I know that she . . .”

What she said made a chilling amount of sense, and he despised it, anyway.  Scowling at her, he set aside the glass and dropped the towel on it so that he could grasp her arm and turn her to face him.  Reaching out with his free hand, he gently lifted her chin with a crooked knuckle, but she wouldn’t look at him, as she looked suspiciously close to tears.  “Do you still?  Hate yourself?” he asked quietly.

She tried to pull away, but he didn’t let go of her arm, and she sighed.  “I . . . I don’t know,” she admitted.  “Some days . . .”

He didn’t know how to respond to that.  He didn’t know what to say, what to do, to make her feel better.  All he really knew was that her pain, her sadness, her sense of absolute desolation, hurt, and that hurt was something that went deeper than bone, deeper than flesh, deeper than soul.  He could feel it, the waves of it that she couldn’t hold back, and he wished like hell that he could make her understand that what she felt . . . It was normal, wasn't it?  Ugly, yes; hurtful, yes, but normal, all the same.

Letting go of her with a heavy sigh, he pulled her tightly, but gently against his chest, tucked her head under his chin, his cheek, and closed his eyes as he held her.  She resisted him for a few moments, stubbornly refusing to accept the simple comfort that he offered her.  Suddenly, though, with a choked sob, she flung her arms around him, held onto him as though she were afraid to let go, and he knew deep down that she really was.  All he had to offer her was a little piece of his soul that rattled and shook and fractured.

Her fists, tightening around handfuls of his shirt, her words that held no form, that imparted no sense of reality . . . All of the confusion, the pain, that she’d carried around for so very long, seemed to flow out of her, hanging in the air like an ugly and toxic cloud, and he squeezed his eyes closed, tried to calm her in a clumsy and broken kind of way.  Somehow, maybe, it was enough, even if he felt pathetic and small in the face of her rampant emotions . . .

And she cried as the shredded bits of his heart seemed to fall away, just for her.

And she cried.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Comments welcome.  Have a great week!_
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> **_Final Thought from Cartham_** :  
>  _Damn_ …


	11. Mending Fences

Bellaniece Zelig Izayoi let out a deep breath as she closed the laptop computer and bit her lip, looking over the notes she’d jotted onto the notepad while she’d made reservations, booked flights, made arrangements for her family’s upcoming trip to Maine for the holidays.  She’d discussed it at length with her mate, Kichiro, and they had decided to do things a little different this year.  Normally, they only visited for a week, maybe two, around Christmas and New Year’s, but this year, Bellaniece wanted to go earlier, wanted to talk to the hunter that her father had sent to find Kelly in the hopes that she could find her friend and visit her, too.  Because she was going to fly out before Thanksgiving, she was only bringing their youngest daughter, Alexandra with her since skipping out on preschool wasn't such a big deal.  Their eldest, Isabelle was in school, and skipping that long wasn’t really an option for her.  Since Kichiro couldn’t leave his medical practice for that long, he would bring Isabelle with him when he flew in a few days before Christmas.

The only thing Kichiro wouldn’t necessarily like was that many of the flights that she’d looked into for the date she wanted were already booked solid, so she’d had no choice but to take a flight a few days earlier than she’d planned, which meant that she had less than two weeks to get things ready for the trip.

She nodded slowly to herself as she looked over the rough itinerary, idly tapping the end of her pen against the pad of paper before quickly glancing at her watch.  Almost eleven o’clock, which meant that Kichiro would be home in about an hour for lunch, and she’d fill him in then instead of interrupting him at work . . .

The trill of her cell phone cut through her musings, and she frowned as she stared at a number that she didn’t know.  For a moment, she considered, letting it go to voicemail, but then, she hesitated.  She wasn’t sure why, but she felt like she should answer it, even though she normally didn’t answer strange callers . . .

“Izayoi,” she said after connecting the call.  “Moshimoshi.”

“Uh, h-hi . . .”

Bellaniece dropped the pen with a clatter and shot to her feet, sending her chair, sliding back across the tile floor as the sound of the familiar voice greeted her.  “Oh, my God!  Kel?  Is that you?”

The girl on the other end sighed.  “Hey,” she said, sounding a little sheepish.  “How’ve you been?”

“Me?  I’m fine,” Bellaniece blurted.  “But you . . . Where in the world are you?  I miss you!  Are you all right?”

Kelly uttered a curt laugh.  “I’m in Vegas,” she said.  “I’m fine, and I . . . I miss you, too . . . I’m sorry I kind of disappeared for so long.  I just . . . I needed some time to myself . . .”

Biting her lip as she considered Kelly’s words, Bellaniece nodded to herself.  Kichiro had thought as much, too—had told her more than once over the last few months just to give Kelly some time.  She might not really know exactly what Kelly was thinking, but she could appreciate just how her friend’s emotions had been in full upheaval lately, too.  “Honey, don’t apologize,” she said, quick to reassure Kelly that there really weren’t any hard feelings on her side of things.  “I’ve only worried about you, but you sound good . . . Are you?”

Kelly sighed.  “I am,” she said, and it sounded like she might well be smiling.  “I’ve got a job as cashier manager at a casino.  Pretty boring, but it pays phenomenally.”

“Wow,” Bellaniece murmured as the long-familiar anxiety that she’d lived with for such a long time when it came to Kelly loosened its grip, just a little.  “And you’ve got a decent place to live, I guess . . . I . . . I was hoping to see you soon.  I was going to go home in a couple weeks for an extended vacation, and if you’re okay with it, I’d love to fly out to see you for a week or so.”

“Oh, I . . . You know, I think I’d love that,” Kelly replied.  “I mean, I doubt I can get more than a couple days extra off, but—”

“That’s okay!  I’m sure I can find things to do while you’re at work,” Bellaniece insisted.  “I don’t want to interrupt your routine or anything.  I’m bringing Alexandra with me, but Kichiro and Isabelle aren’t flying in till closer to Christmas, so it’ll just be a girl thing.”

“Sounds good,” Kelly agreed.  “Let me know when you’re coming out.”

“I will,” Bellaniece assured her.  “Is there anything you need?  I mean, I owe you a housewarming present, and—”

“I don’t really need anything,” Kelly interrupted.  “Well, I am out of the cream that Kichiro prescribed for the scarring, but . . .”

“Don’t worry about that.  I’ll see what he can do,” she said.  “How’s that feeling?  No trouble with the grafts, right?”

“They’re okay,” Kelly replied.  “I mean, they itch sometimes, but they’re not bad.  Just wish the scarring would go away a little faster, but I’m not complaining.”

Bellaniece frowned thoughtfully.  Kelly wasn’t really one to complain, and she knew it, which meant that what she was feeling was worse than she’d ever let on.  It wasn’t surprising that she was dealing with itchiness and discomfort like that.  Kichiro had described the process well enough to her.  The itching was accredited mostly to the nerves that were regenerating under the new skin and was, in fact, a good thing, even if it didn’t feel that way.  He’d said that it could become almost overwhelming if Kelly didn’t use her body cream regularly. Bellaniece could only really imagine how that would feel, but the cream that Kelly had mentioned was a special thing, created for youkai that would help to ease the itchiness, too, as well as accelerate the growth of the cells needed to regenerate the skin structure.  There was also a minor numbing property to it that helped to counter the heightened sensitivity of those new nerves as they adjusted themselves.  Bellaniece could only hope that Kelly hadn’t been out of it for too long.  She’d make sure that she got some of it into the mail today, no matter how much it might cost to get the cream to Kelly the fastest way possible.

“This is your phone, right?  I’ll text you information on flight plans and see what I can do about getting you that cream as soon as I can,” Bellaniece said.  “I think Daddy’s got some times to the nearby air force base, so I might be able to get it overnighted through them.”

“Oh, you don’t have to go to any trouble,” Kelly hurried to say.  “I mean, if you want to just bring it with you when you fly out here, then that’s fine.”

“It’s not a problem,” Bellaniece insisted.  “I’ll see how many containers Kichiro can get a hold of so you won’t run out any time soon.”

Kelly sighed, probably at the idea that she was causing trouble for her friend—something she really hated.  “Really, it’s not a big deal,” she said again.

Glancing up with a smile as Kichiro stepped into the kitchen, Bellaniece leaned against him as he slipped an arm around her for a quick hug.  “It’s not,” she insisted once more.  “Kichiro’s home now for lunch, so I’ll talk to him about it and get it out to you this afternoon.”

Kelly heaved a slightly louder sigh, but then, she laughed.  “All right,” she agreed, apparently figuring she might as well give up.  “I’ll let you go, but . . . but I’m really sorry that I took off for so long.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bellaniece said.  “Love you, and I’ll talk to you later.”

“You, too.”

The connection ended, and Bellaniece lowered her phone with a happy sigh of her own as Kichiro arched an articulated eyebrow in silent question.  She slipped her arms around him and gave him a quick squeeze as a relieved little giggle slipped out of her.  “Kelly,” she said, waving the phone that was still in her hand against his back.  “She sounds good . . . Better than she has in a long, long time, in fact.  I’m going to go see her in Las Vegas while I’m in the States.”

“Good,” Kichiro said, sparing a moment to plant a kiss on her forehead.  “So, what are you getting out to her?”

“She’s out of the medicated cream,” she told him, letting her arms drop and turning away to retrieve the beautifully lacquered bentou box off of the counter for her mate.  “Can you get me a few of them?  I’ll call Daddy and see if he has connections with the air force base still.  It’d probably be faster to send it through the APO than not since there’s no telling, how long she’s been without it.”

He grimaced.  “Not long, I hope,” he muttered, taking the box and slipping it onto the table.  “If she’s been without it for any length of time, I can’t even imagine how bad the itching would be.  Come up to the clinic, and I’ll get you a few containers.  You can take more to her when you go visit her.  Vegas, you say?”  He chuckled.  “It kind of sounds like fun.”

“Do you want me to delay going out there till you fly in?” she asked.

Kichiro shrugged as he slipped into the chair at the table.  “Nah . . . I mean, you and she have some catching up to do, don’t you?  See if she won’t let you look at her scarring, though.  Let me know how bad it is still.  If you can talk her into going for massages or something, that’d help, too.  It would help to increase the blood flow, which, in turn, will speed up the healing process, too.”

Bellaniece nodded, but she wasn't sure if she could get Kelly to agree to it.  She supposed it had more to do with just how comfortable Kelly was in her own skin these days, and that wasn't something she’d really get a good gauge on until she was there, face to face with her.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Everyone stares at you like you’re some kind of creeper, like you’re some kind of_ monster . . _. and then, you look in the mirror, and it’s not even you that you see.  It’s someone who kind of looks like you, but it’s not your face.  Everything just . . . just slightly_ off, _and . . . And you_ hate _it_ . . . _You . . . You hate_ yourself . . . _because you . . . You . . . You_ . . .”

Letting out a deep breath as he sat up in the huge bed and turned his face to stare out the windows at the trees and flora that made up his yard, Cartham rubbed his face.

Damn, he’d hated to leave her.

The couple days after her meltdown in the kitchen, she was fine—better than fine, actually—almost as though her upset had been somewhat cathartic for her.

Maybe it was.

For Cartham, though?  For him, it had been anything but cathartic.  The pain she’d showed him, the absolute vulnerability, was so real, so raw, so toxic.  He hurt for her, and as much as it hurt him, he wasn’t stupid enough to think that what he felt was even one iota as painful to him as it was to her.

‘ _You could always get a place closer to her.  No one says you have to stay in Maine, right?_ ’

His thoughtful frown deepened.  He wasn’t sure when that idea had first occurred to him, but he did understand one thing: every time he got back on a plane, headed home, it was growing harder and harder to do it.  Wasn't that why he’d bought her the gun?  Because he was worried about her when he wasn’t there?

Or . . .

‘ _Partially, sure, but you know, there’s more to it than that.  Of course, you’re worried about her well-being, but there’s more to it than that._ ’

He was beginning to understand that, too.  Kelly . . . She wasn’t just some assignment to him, not anymore.  Maybe she never had been.

The pain in her eyes, the misery that he could feel . . .

And he’d felt like a complete monster when he’d said goodbye to her in the airport just before the security checkpoint that she couldn’t go past.  When he’d looked back at her, she’d smiled, and she’d waved, and . . .

And somehow, he’d felt like a complete and utter bastard, didn’t he?

Somehow, the idea that he was too far away to help her when she needed it was growing, and the more it grew, the more abhorrent it became to him.  She’d been through enough, seen enough, dealt with enough on her own, and it didn’t matter that she was still so very young, someone like her deserved to see the better side of life, one she hadn’t really gotten to experience yet, not really.  Except . . .

Except, what did a guy like him know about such things, really?  A guy who made a living, killing other living beings?  And maybe he’d grown up in a time too long ago, hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the subtle things that someone like her would know.  He wasn’t suave, wasn't debonair, knew nothing of the right things to say or the way in which to state his thoughts, his feelings.

Even so, she hadn’t seemed to care about that at all, had she?  That day on the shooting range, the way she’d stared at him . . .

Just the memory was enough to send a shiver, right up his spine.  He could remember a handful of times in the past when he’d felt something kind of like that, but it had never felt that strong, that all-encompassing, either.  Those times, he’d realized later, were nothing more than a fleeting sense of lust, and nothing had ever come of it.  Now, those faces had dulled and faded into history, not worth remembering, not worth trying to forget, but somehow, he knew.  No matter how long he lived, Kelly’s face would forever be emblazoned upon his memory—everything about her: her scent, her laugh, the unnatural sparkle in her eyes, full of tears that she fought to keep from allowing them to fall . . .

And the centuries that he’d thought that it was all right to be alone, even now, didn’t he still keep people at a healthy arm’s length?  It wasn’t something that he’d ever set out to do, and still, something about it was simpler than trying to forge a deeper connection . . .

Maybe in the time after his parents had died, he’d somehow convinced himself that those connections were too painful, that he was better off on his own.  Maybe the way his uncle had constantly lectured him, how he’d browbeaten him with the idea that he should be grateful and just accept the meager allowances he was given . . . He supposed that somewhere along the line, he’d just decided that he didn’t want the strings that always seemed to exist, and even when he’d trained with Rhen, he’d kept that sense of distance, possibly because Rhen hadn’t ever tried to breach it, never seemed interested in forging a deeper kind of relationship than that of student and teacher.

And yes, he did consider Cain to be a friend, but the reality of it was that they were more boss and employee than friends.  Sure, there had been a few more invitations to spend time with the family outside of the confines of official capacity since he’d taken Gin as his mate, but the truth of it was that Cartham rarely ever accepted them, mostly since he was normally being sent out pretty much immediately on assorted assignments when he showed up at the Zelig mansion, and even so, Cain knew him pretty well, but there was a lot about him that Zelig never knew, just as there was a lot about Cain that Cartham didn’t know, too.

The trill of the cell phone cut through his idyll, and with a grunt, he leaned over, snatched it up from his nightstand.

“Kel?” he blurted once the call was connected.  “Everything okay?”

She laughed.  “Fine, fine,” she replied, but her amusement hadn’t waned.  “Why is it that you automatically assume that the sky’s fallen whenever I call you?”

He grunted.  “Just my nature, I guess,” he grumbled.

Her amusement finally died down.  “That’s really pessimistic,” she pointed out, but she sounded like she might be teasing.  “I just thought I’d tell you that I called Belle last evening.  She’s going to come out for a visit soon.”

“Oh, yeah?  You ready for that?”

“Yeah,” she said, and she sounded casual enough.  “I am . . . I mean, I do miss her.”

“Good, then,” he rumbled.

“Oh, and I wanted to tell you,” she went on, apparently deciding that a change in topic was in order.  “That motorcycle of yours?  Now, that’s hot.”

“Hot?” he echoed, shaking his head slowly as he considered what she said.  He’d sent her a couple pictures of the 1962 Harley Sportster yesterday after he’d spent the morning, giving her a good cleaning.  “You think so?”

“Uh huh . . . I’d love to see it in person one day . . . Then you can take me out for a ride, can’t you?”

“I . . . I could do that,” he allowed slowly, scratching the center of his chest in a preoccupied kind of way.  He’d never actually taken anyone for a ride on his bike, ever—had never let anyone else on it, period, come to think of it.  Kelly, though?  Somehow, the idea of Kelly, riding with him was highly compelling . . . “Maybe I’ll ride her out sometime.”

She laughed.  “Her?  And does she have a name?”

“All bikes are girls,” he told her.  “Some of them are moody and temperamental, some of them purr like a kitten if you baby ‘em . . . Sounds like girls to me.”

She snorted.  “Is that right?  I never thought I’d hear something that sexist out of you.”

He chuckled.  “It’s not sexist if it’s true.  And no, I never gave her a name.”

“Well, you should.  Girls like having names, too,” she pointed out.

He uttered a terse grunt, but didn’t argue with her.

“I hate to cut this short, but I need to get going.  I’m meeting a guy to look at an apartment that’s a little closer to work in half an hour,” she went on.

He blinked since she hadn’t mentioned anything about that before.  “You want to move?  You never mentioned that.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but one of the guys at the casino was saying that he was thinking about subletting his apartment since he bought a bigger place, and by bigger, I mean more akin to a mansion, really.  Anyway, his apartment is a two bedroom, and it’d be nice to have a guest room so _someone_ can stop complaining about sleeping on my sofa when he’s in town.  If I decide to take it, though, don’t suppose you’d be out here any time soon?”

“You want me to check the place’s security?”

“Nope,” she quipped.  “I just need someone big and burly to move all my stuff.”

“Really.”

She laughed for a moment.  “Anyway, Miles—”

“Miles?” he interrupted, unable to keep the slight growl out of his voice.

“Mhmm—Miles Brennan.  He’s the head of security at the casino.”

“Is that right?”

She didn’t seem to notice the menace in his tone, either.  “I don’t know if I’ll take it or not,” she said.  “The rent’s quite a bit more than this place, but it’s located in a really nice area—maybe not the most expensive one, but a nice one, all the same.  On the one hand, it’d be nice to have a bigger place, but on the other, I really like saving money up, too.  I could still save if I got the other place, but not nearly as much.”

“Don’t move on my account,” he told her.  “Your sofa’s fine.”

“Sure, it is,” she teased.  “I’ll take some pictures and send them to you.”

“Aight,” he replied.  “Be careful.”

“I will,” she promised.  “Call you later if you’re not busy.”

The connection ended, and Cartham frowned at the device.  It didn’t bother him that she was going to go look at a place, and he kind of hoped that she’d take it, but he also understood her desire to save up money, too.  Especially her, he figured.  Having been on the very bottom, she likely remembered a little too vividly, what that was really like.

The only part of it that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with was that he didn’t know whether or not the building was as secure as he’d like, so if she decided she wanted the place, he was going to have to insist that she allow him to check it over before she set foot inside it to stay.

And he wanted to check out this Miles Brennan, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Here’s the deal.  I spent the whole day yesterday, sleeping, no joke.  Like my body decided that I just couldn’t stay awake for anything, to the point that my poor guys had to scavenge last night for dinner because they just didn’t want to wake me up.  This chapter is NOT edited.  Literally, had no power to do it myself, so, it probably will be edited later on (in which case, you really should read them because “edit” to me, means LET’S ADD MORE) … But I wanted to post this today for you.  Let’s hope my body decides that being awake would be a great thing in the future, right?  And don’t forget, after this project is done, I’m going to take the time to finish the project I WAS working on before this one struck me.  Then I’ll mass post THAT, which should be something y’all are probably looking forward to.  Anyway, enjoy this chapter_.
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> **_Final Thought from Cartham_** :  
>  _Moving, huh_?


	12. Security

“Miles Brennan: human, age thirty-six, occupation: head of security at the Lucky Starr Casino as well as the Starr Oasis Hotel in Las Vegas.  Certification in firearms safety and marksmanship.  Graduated with honors from the University of Southern California with a master’s degree in criminology.  Participation in a number of clubs, ranging from sports clubs to hunting clubs.  Joined the Navy, was a SEAL for a couple years.  Those records are, of course, classified.  No criminal record and only one traffic citation in the last five years.  Recently engaged to one Lyza Carr, who works as a cashier at the same casino.”

Frowning in concentration at the copy of the background check that Moe Jamison had just read to him over the phone, Cartham felt marginally relieved that the man seemed to check out, especially since Kelly had told him that she liked the apartment and was seriously considering, renting it, even though she was a little apprehensive about the rent that was more than she’d thought it would be.

“He checks out, Cartham.  Should be safe enough.  I’d think that, with the guy’s history of working security detail, his place should past muster easily, but I’m sure you’ll check into that, too.  Now, you want to tell me why you’re so interested?  You planning on moving to Vegas?”

Cartham made a face.  “Uh, no.  It’s for a . . . a friend.  Just want to make sure that Brennan’s on the up-and-up, is all.  Thanks, Moe.”

“Not a problem,” Moe replied.  “Let me know if you need anything else.”

The call ended, and Cartham tossed his phone onto the rough wood coffee table without taking his eyes on the report that Moe had sent him.  Aside from the information that the fellow hunter had already read to him, there were a couple pages of transcripts, a copy of his current lease, his driver’s license—basically all public documentation of the man’s life thus far.  “A deacon in his church?” he read out loud, his scowl darkening as he flipped to the next page.  “A damn paragon of virtue, is he?”

‘ _You know, you should be glad that this guy is so upstanding, Cartham.  I mean, strictly speaking, you’d think that it ought to bother you more if the guy was a complete dickbag, right?_ ’

He grunted.  ‘ _I’m glad he’s a . . . great person,_ ’ Cartham retorted.  ‘ _Just makes me think that, when someone comes off as that much of a boy scout, then there’s gotta be something else there—something he’s hiding._ ’

‘ _Look, it’s not like he’s trying to hit on Kelly or anything.  He’s just looking to sublet his apartment.  That’s all.  It sounds like he’ll be a pretty decent person to rent from.  Just go out there and make sure the place is secure enough, and it’ll all be good._ ’

‘ _I’m aware of what’s going on,_ ’ Cartham grumbled.  ‘ _Anyway, it’s my policy not to trust anyone, right off the bat.  You already know that, or you should._ ’

‘ _Of course, it is.  It makes sense, too, and it makes you a damn good hunter.  The thing is, you ought to be able to trust Kelly’s judgement, don’t you think?_ ’

He scowled.  It wasn’t Kelly that he didn’t trust, no.  He’d seen for himself that she wasn’t one to be swayed by just any old guy.  After all, she’d flat out turned down that pharmaceutical guy who could have easily been considered a prime catch, he supposed.  No, it was more that he worried that she’d find herself in some kind of situation that she had no control over.

‘ _You know, if you’re so worried that something’s going to happen, then maybe you should think about moving closer to her.  Then you could drive her crazy instead of keeping that specific honor for me._ ’

Cartham snorted, but he was saved from delving into it too deeply when the trill of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts, and he answered it without bothering to check since it was the ringtone that only belonged to Kelly.  “Hey, missy,” he greeted when the call connected.

Her reply was a very loud, very pronounced sigh.  “I can’t do it,” she stated flatly and in a rather sullen tone of voice.  “I can’t allow myself to rent that place, even though I really liked it—not without a roommate or something to offset the cost of it.  I just can’t . . . can’t justify the added expense in my own head . . .”

Cartham chuckled.  “That right?  And you don’t know anyone you’d want to have as a roommate?  No one at work or anything?”

She sighed again.  “Not unless—Why don’t you move here?  You can be my roommate,” she blurted, apparently struck by instant inspiration.  “I mean, I can tolerate you, and—”

“Tolerate?” he interrupted before he could stop himself.  “Is that right?”

“Well, you don’t annoy me, if that’s what you mean—no habits that drive me batty—maybe your weird coffee fixation,” she quipped.  “And you know, if you lived with me, then I wouldn’t need that gun, right?”

“Nice try, missy.  You’re still going to practice using it.”

She uttered a little, derisive hrumph.  “Anyway, I could totally afford the place if I lived there with you, and . . . and you can do your job from anywhere, can’t you?  You don’t have to be there, right?”

“This is true,” he allowed, settling back in his chair, tossing the papers onto the coffee table.  “I mean, yeah, I could work from wherever, but you said you wanted a guest room, and if I’m living with you, then you won’t have one, so it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but . . .” Trailing off, she clucked her tongue a few times.  “I know; I know.  I’m being ridiculous.  Dropping everything to move out here?”  She laughed suddenly, as though the entire concept was completely asinine.  “Belle used to tell me that I would do stuff without stopping to think it through, and she’s right . . . Of course, she’s not really that much better about it . . .”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re being ridiculous,” he told her.

Her sigh told him that she thought he was just humoring her.  “You know, maybe I should just stay here, save up money till I have enough for a decent down payment on a house or something, but then, I’d have to make sure that this is where I want to be for a long time.  This apartment is nice enough, really, and for just me, it’s comfortable.  I could always just get new furniture to freshen the place up . . .”

“You could, or—”

“I’m going to call Miles back, let him know that I’m going to pass on that apartment, and then I’ve got to get to work.  There’s a management staff meeting in about an hour, and I can’t miss that.  I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

The connection ended before Cartham could respond, and he lowered the phone, frowning at it thoughtfully as he slowly weighed it in his hand.

He’d thought it fleetingly before, and she was right; he didn’t really need to live in Maine to do his job.  Being here made it easier, sure, but only for things like briefings before missions.  The other hunters who didn’t live anywhere near Maine tended to do a things a little differently, in that they were sent their assignments and did briefings via video feed.  Normally, they’d purchase their own prepaid cards and phones, and Cain would reimburse them for the expenses, and there was no reason to think that he couldn’t do the same for Cartham, should he decide to move.

Letting out a deep breath, Cartham shook his head.  What was he thinking?  Moving away from Maine?  He frowned.  He liked being here.  He liked the feeling of the wide-open space that still existed here.  He felt entirely at ease here, which was something that was hard for him to come by.

‘ _Well, even if you did decide to get a place in Vegas, nothing says you have to sell this one.  It’s not like you can’t afford it, you know, and that way, you can always come back here if and when the time’s right._ ’

That was true, of course.  Even so . . .

- ** _==========_** -

 _Everything hurt_.

 _With a pained hiss of breath, Kelly’s eyes flashed open, her alarm, her near panic, instant and intense.  The pain, like a million shards of glass, digging into her body, brought a sheen of tears to her eyes as darkness ringed her vision, and she groaned, cried, squeezed her eyes closed as tears seeped out of the crease of her eyelids, trickling down her face, firing off another round of intense stinging as the salt in those tears flowed into the burned flesh of her cheek_.

 _She wanted to pass out again, and if she had any kind of rational thought ability, that was what she’d have wished for.  In those moments, the fear that overwhelmed her only caused the pain to intensify into a hell of sensation that was too much for her to bear_.

 _Slowly, though, the sound of a voice, speaking in soothing tones, broke through the haze of her brain, and as it grew louder, the pain seemed to lessen, at least, to the point that she could breathe.  Those breaths echoed under the plastic oxygen mask, strapped to her face, and Kelly slowly, cautiously, opened her eyes as a heavy sort of fog settled over her, dulling that pain at the cost of her ability to control her thoughts_.

 _The friendly smile of a nurse dressed in light purple scrubs wavered into and out of focus.  A young-looking woman—Kelly found out later that she was youkai—spoke to her, but her words took all of Kelly’s concentration to sluggishly comprehend.  “I gave you something for the pain,” she explained, her smile not faltering.  “The doctor didn’t want you to have as heavy of a dose until after you’d regained consciousness.  Standard protocol for our kind . . . I’m sorry about that.  Just go on back to sleep, Kelly.  Dr. Kent will keep you sedated for the next few days so we can debride your wounds without hurting you more_.”

 _But that was a lie, she’d found out.  Drugged up enough that she was unable to move, cognizant enough to feel every last excruciating second as they pulled away the pressure dressings, as they used tweezers to pull off layers of dead skin . . . Unable to do more than groan, she couldn’t even cry as, hours upon hours, days upon days, were spent, putting her through a whole new odyssey of absolute agony_ . . .

Eyes flashing open, Kelly sat straight up in bed, her breathing, harsh and labored, as a cold sweat soaked through her pajamas despite the coolness of her bedroom.

Hastily shoving the light sheet aside, uttering a terse little growl as she struggled to yank her feet free, she finally stumbled off the bed and out of her room without bothering to turn on any lights, heading for the bathroom to splash cool water on her face as her heart hammered painfully against her ribcage . . .

She spared a few moments to hurriedly splash water on her face before yanking off her clothes and turning on the shower with a deft twist of the wrist.  She didn’t wait for it to warm at all, ducking under the cold flow to instantly cool her overheated skin.  After savoring the feel of the water on her body, she soaped herself and rinsed off quickly.  By the time she was done and reached out to shut off the tap, the water was just starting to warm, and she sighed as she wrapped herself into a soft, thick towel, ignoring the moisture in her hair as it dripped down her back.

For once, she ignored the pajamas she left on the floor and headed back to her room.  This time, though, she turned the lamp on beside the bed and gritted her teeth as she let the towel drop to the floor.  Then, she grabbed the large jar of medicated cream from the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed with a frown.

Bellaniece had sent the cream from the air force base, which meant that she had gotten it earlier yesterday—four jars of it, actually, which was enough to last Kelly for quite a while, even though she used it once, sometimes twice, a day.  She’d felt the difference immediately.  Even though nothing really alleviated the itchiness entirely, the cream worked wonders for that, and, she knew, over time, it would help even more.  She’d left a couple jars, back in Maine.  She hadn’t even thought about grabbing them before she left, and that was really the only thing she wished she’d taken the time to pack.  Letting out a relieved little sigh as the very light tingle that was somehow soothing erupted, deep in her skin, Kelly could feel the edges of her upset, staring to loosen its grip.

That nightmare that was more of a memory than an actual dream hadn’t plagued her in quite a while—since before she’d moved to Las Vegas—but it was just as harsh now as it had been back then, back when it had come to her night after night after night, until she’d felt as though she were going mad . . .

It would probably never really go away, she figured.  After all, that time in her life was so traumatic in so many ways.  The months and years following the accident had been hard to deal with, and so often, it had felt like one setback after another.  After the initial series of three reconstruction surgeries, she’d thought that she was finished, that the worst of it was past.  About a year after that, though, some of the grafted skin had started to die, and they weren’t sure why, so she’d had to undergo another couple surgeries to replace some of the grafts, and this time, Kichiro had opted to wait longer between the surgeries.  He’d postulated that the initial operations had been performed too closely, that her body had needed more time in order to start to assimilate the grafts better.  His theory had proven correct, and he’d waited almost two years between the first of the correctional surgeries and the second.

At least now, at this point, her body had adjusted to the point that she no longer needed the anti-rejection medication, which meant, according to Kichiro, that she was pretty much home free.  Even so, she still tended to check those areas where she’d had trouble after the first series, trying to make sure that she caught any sign of rejection earlier than she had the last time.  She probably always would.  Some habits were impossible to break, weren’t they?

It was a weird thing, really.  She’d learned to live with that deep-rooted sense of anxiety that hadn’t ever really gone away after the accident, to the point that it had become normal to her, and that anxiety had married into the whole, convoluted ball of negative emotions until it had manifested itself as that depression that had crept over her in such a way that she hadn’t even realized what was happening until after she’d managed to break free of it, if only by a little bit.  In a very real sense, her defection from her hometown had probably saved her life.  Even a year ago at this same time, she had spent so many nights, wondering just what was the point of her existence.  To be brutally honest, she still couldn’t say she had an answer to that question, but . . .

But she had found things that made it worthwhile to wake up in the morning and to open her eyes.

Still, she had to wonder, just how long it would take before she could look at herself in the mirror and not have that one, fleeting moment when she felt that irrational fear, that panic.  Maybe if she could get to the point where she felt that sense of familiarity she used to take for granted when she looked at herself, then she’d know that she was all right.

Frowning as she took in the sight of the scars that still traversed her body, she forced herself to take her time, working the cream into her skin.  Kichiro had told her to massage it in, that it would help to encourage the blood flow necessary for the skin grafts to meld with her own.

What would Cartham have thought of her if she hadn’t finally sought to escape the prison of her own mind?  He’d come to find her because Cain had asked him to—paid him to, actually.  That had put her on her guard, and rightfully so.  But still, it confused her.  He’d helped her by loaning her money, and sure, maybe it was nothing more than a means to an end for him, but he could have been heavier-handed—could have easily insisted that she do things his way.

And she tried to remind herself not to read too much into it, not to rely upon his apparent kindness, upon his apparent friendship.  She tried to remind herself that she shouldn’t look forward to his impromptu visits, too.  None of that seemed to work, though.  No amount of those reminders could stop the quick flutter in her chest when her phone beeped unexpectedly, when the tap on the door announced the arrival of the man in question.

The last time, Cain hadn’t sent him, hadn’t known that he was coming out to see her, and maybe . . . Maybe she wasn't just a job, not anymore . . .

Wiping her hands on the towel, she sighed again, but it wasn’t an entirely unhappy sound, either.  No, it was more than that, and it took a moment for her to really grasp what it was that she was feeling.

It wasn’t optimism, exactly, but it wasn’t negativity, either.  It was more of a sense that maybe—maybe—things might well end up all right in the long run, as long as she could hold on until then . . .

- ** _==========_** -

Blinking as he slipped off the motorcycle in the driveway in front of the Zelig mansion, Cartham spotted young Sebastian, playing in the grass just off the path with the family dog.  The six-year-old and future North American tai-youkai sat still, idly picking at the blades of grass with a thoughtful frown on his face as the crisp fall breeze blew his long bronze bangs into his eyes.  Cheeks rosy from the brisk wind that blew off the sea, wearing a red quilted flannel jacket, buttoned from top to bottom—doubtless his mother’s influence—he seemed a little more somber, a little more reflective . . . Something about the boy seemed a little more serious than normal, which was saying a lot since he tended to be a rather serious child, overall, and Cartham stepped toward him.

“Why so serious, kiddo?” he asked, hunkering down beside him, resting his elbows on his knees as his hands dangled limply in the air between them.

Sebastian—Bas, for short—screwed up his face as he considered Cartham’s question.  “I was thinking,” he replied simply.

“You look like you’re doing some pretty serious thinking,” Cartham pointed out.

Bas shrugged his small shoulders, letting one hand fall to the thick fur of the dog beside him.  “Well, my daddy said something, and . . . and I don’t get it,” he said, and as he spoke, the scowl on his tiny face seemed to darken.  Not surprising, Cartham figured.  The boy had an uncanny way of taking things far more seriously than someone his age probably should.  It would probably make him a damn good tai-youkai one day, but for a child?  It seemed a little much.

“What did he say?”

Bas made a face, making no bones about the idea that he was very irritated that he couldn’t grasp whatever it was that Cain had said.  “He said that he isn’t always my daddy,” Bas finally said.  “He said sometimes, he’s gotta be tai-youkai, but . . . but he _looks_ the same, so . . .”

“I see,” Cartham said with a slow nod.

Bas wasn’t finished.  “So, if he isn’t my daddy, then who is?  Don’t I have a daddy all the time?  And where does Daddy go if he has to be tai-youkai?”

Cartham chuckled and reached over to muss Bas’ hair, which earned him a wizened scowl that gave a brief glimpse into the man that the boy would one day be.  “I think what he meant was that sometimes, he has to think and make choices as the tai-youkai, even if he’d rather do things more like what your daddy would do . . . Like, if you want to play football, right?  But he has to say no so that he can work in his office.  Does that make sense?”

Bas pondered that, and slowly, he nodded.  “So, if he can’t play with me, then it’s because he has to be tai-youkai?  But he’d rather play with me?”

“Aiyuh,” Cartham agreed, figuring that it was the easiest way to explain it to the boy.  “Why didn’t you just ask your dad what he meant?”

This time, Bas sighed.  “I tried to understand it,” he explained.

Cartham nodded, too.  That made sense.  Given the boy that he knew, it wasn't surprising to him that Bas simply didn’t want to admit that he didn’t understand, in the first place.  One day, he’d learn that there was no harm in asking if he didn’t get something right away, but Cartham figured it was a lesson that he’d figure out over time, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that, either.

But Bas’ current quandary seemed to be solved, and he was ready to turn his full attention to Cartham, instead.  “Are you here to see my daddy?”

“Aiyuh,” Cartham replied, bracing his hands on his knees to push himself to his feet again.  “He inside?”

Bas looked thoughtful, his tiny mouth, pursing and shifting to the side as his eyes rolled upward in an exaggerated show of consideration.  “I think so,” he said, looking entirely too serious for his own good.  “I can go find him, if you want.”

Cartham chuckled.  “That’s okay . . . Looks like you’re busy.”

Bas shook his head and whistled for the dog to follow him as he hopped up, pausing long enough to grab the sides of his waistband to hike up his jeans with a little jump.  “Is this business, Mr. Cartham?”

The formality of the address drew another chuckle from the hunter.  “I guess you could say that.”

Bas nodded and darted past Cartham, up the steps of the wide front porch and into the mansion, leaving the door, standing wide open, likely thinking that Cartham was following close behind.

“Daddy!  Mr. Cartham’s here to see you!” Bas announced in a rather self-important tone as he stood in the doorway of the office near the entrance.

“Oh, he is, is he?  Well, tell him to come in,” Cain said, a vague little smile on his face as he spotted Cartham over his son’s shoulder.

Bas turned and blinked solemnly.  “My daddy can see you now,” he said, stepping to the side to allow Cartham to pass.

Cartham ruffled the boy’s hair in passing, and Bas, satisfied that his job was done, whistled for the dog again and dashed back outside.  This time, he closed the front door behind himself, and Cartham chuckled as he slipped into a chair, opposite the North American tai-youkai.

“What’s up?” Cain asked, setting aside a small stack of papers he’d been looking over.

Cartham shrugged, settling back in the chair in a lazy kind of way.  “Nothing really,” he replied.  “I just wanted to see if you had anything for me?  Otherwise, I was thinking about flying out to Vegas for a few days.”

Cain frowned.  “Vegas?  Is Kelly all right?”

“As far as I know,” he replied.

Cain still seemed confused as he idly patted his pockets for a rumpled pack of smokes.  “Good . . . Good . . . But if she’s fine, then . . .?”

Cartham shrugged again, digging a stick of Doublemint gum out of his coat, deliberately taking his time as he unwrapped it and folded it into his mouth.  “Eh, you know.  She doesn’t have anyone nearby.  If something happened, then she’s alone.  That’s all.  So, I was, uh . . . I was thinking about maybe moving out there, you know, just for a little while.”

Cain stilled for a long moment, and then, he shook his head.  “To Vegas?  You want to move out there?”

“For a little while,” he repeated, purposefully keeping his tone on the lighter side.  “It won’t be a problem, will it?”

Cain blinked and shook his head.  “Yeah, no, it’d be fine,” he assured him.  “It just seems kind of out of the blue; that’s all.”

Cartham made a face.  “Well, kind of.  I mean, I’ve been considering it for a while.  A change of scenery is nice every now and then.”

Cain didn’t look like he was buying, and why would he since Cartham had lived in pretty much the same spot for almost as long as he’d known him.  He opted not to say anything about it, though, and he shrugged.  “Well, there’s nothing that I can’t assign to someone else if it came down to it,” Cain said, apparently opting to dismiss whatever thoughts he had on Cartham’s abrupt announcement.  “At the moment, there’s not really anything on the radar, as far as hunts go—thank God.”

“Cool,” Cartham said, pushing himself to his feet.  “Give me a call if you need anything.”

Cain nodded, but remained silent as he watched the hunter go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_MMorg  
> _** — — —
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_AO3  
> _** Calvarez ——— minthegreen ——— Elizabeth ——— TheWonderfulShoe
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _He’s going to move here_ …?


	13. Discoveries

Cartham stood back, arms crossed over his chest, casting a rather menacing eye at the delivery guys who were carrying in the overstuffed, brown suede leather sofa into the house as Kelly glanced up from unpacking a box in the open-air kitchen to see what was going on.

They’d gotten lucky, really.  He’d found a nice place that wasn’t too far from Kelly’s old apartment, an old, abandoned warehouse on the edge of the business district, just inside the residential zone, and there was a smallish loft apartment that was completely livable, even if it did require a good, solid cleaning.  Even so, Cartham figured that they could easily renovate the space to suit their needs over time, and, surprisingly to him, Kelly was pretty keen on the idea of doing a lot of the work themselves.  Since the place was already empty and being held by a bank, it only took just over a week to close on it, too.

What had surprised him, actually, was that it was fairly easy to talk Kelly into it.  Oh, she had initially said that she thought it was a crazy idea.  He’d pretty much expected that.  But . . .

 _Narrowing her eyes as she slowly shook her head, as she stared at Cartham as though he’d sprouted another couple heads, Kelly frowned.  “Let me see if I get what you’re saying here,” she said slowly, methodically, as she sat at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around her coffee mug.  “You think that we—as in, you and I—should buy a place and live together?  Is that right?_ ”

 _Carelessly emptying his own mug, Cartham grunted and set the empty vessel aside.  “Yeah, why not?  You want a bigger place, and I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery_.”

 _Her frown darkened.  “And you think we should be roommates_ . . .”

 _He nodded, opening the newspaper to the housing ads section of the classifieds.  “Sounds about right.  Hey, look.  This place has four bedrooms, three baths . . . two-thousand-plus square feet, located in the High Plains division just outside of the city_.”

 _She wrinkled her nose.  “I’d rather not move out of the city,” she muttered, “and isn’t the High Plains division one of the more expensive areas?_ ”

“ _No price listed, but there’s a number for the realtor_.”

 _She snorted.  “If there’s not one listed, then it means that the asking price will give you indigestion for a year or more.  No—and I haven’t said I’d move in with you_.”

 _He shrugged.  “Yeah, you did_.”

 _That gave her pause, and she blinked.  “I did not!_ ”

“ _Yeah, you did,” he stated once more.  “In fact, it was your idea, if you’ll recall.  You asked me to move out here and be your roommate_.”

 _Her mouth that had been hanging slightly open, snapped closed as a wash of redness seeped into her cheeks.  “I was joking,” she grumbled_.

“ _No, you weren’t.  Anyway, we’ll go talk to a few realtors, see if they know of anything that sounds like it would suit_.”

She’d gone along with him after a fashion, and after that initial discussion, she hadn’t actually tried to get out of it, either.  Cartham wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a good thing or not, especially when she’d claimed the largest bedroom for herself in the place that they’d finally found, thanks to a realtor who had just casually mentioned the place as kind of a half-assed suggestion, more of a joke than a real possibility.  He didn’t care about that as long as the bed he’d ordered fit into his room without an issue.

“Right here?” the delivery crew leader asked, gesturing at the sofa.

Cartham nodded.  “Aiyuh.”

The guy nodded, too and lead the other three out of the apartment area to bring in the next item.  They’d opted to buy new furniture since Kelly’s was all secondhand.  It was clean enough, sure, but it was all about twenty years old and looked pretty damn dated, too, which wouldn’t really bother him, but . . . But he kind of wanted to allow her to outfit their place the way she saw fit, so, to that end, he’d let her think that he simply didn’t care for her furnishings.  She’d rolled her eyes and shook her head, but in the end, he’d talked her into going shopping easily enough.

Besides, he hadn’t seen the need to move all of his things out of the Maine house, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that Kelly’s taste in furnishings actually matched up pretty well with his own.  Granted, he didn’t really care, what she’d really wanted, but he’d be lying if tried to say that he was pretty relieved that she hadn’t gone the over-the-top girly route with it.  The sofa set she’d chosen was fashioned from super soft suede leather, slightly darker than a standard taupe, large and comfortable-looking with a matching reclining chair and a chaise lounge that was pretty obviously for her.  The tables were thick, solid, wood pieces, stained a rich mahogany with smoked, tempered glass insets that were definitely sturdy enough for his tastes but didn’t look cumbersome, either, and the entertainment cabinet was of the same wood and glass theme.  She’d opted for a solid wood table and chairs for the dining area, though she had eyed a very pretty glass table for a while, only to decide that fingerprints would drive her crazy in the end, and all the appliances in the kitchen were burnished chrome finished.

All the things she’d mentioned about the refurbishing sounded fine to him, as well.  She didn’t really want to go for the industrial kind of look that would be easier to keep in a place like the old warehouse.  The outside was brick and adobe, he figured it had to be since it was kind of on the border between the industrial district and a much more residential area.  There weren’t many windows on the base level of the building, but Kelly had suggested that they build onto the upper floor and leave much of the warehouse as a workshop for Cartham since she knew that he enjoyed, tinkering with motorcycles and such.

‘ _Well, that and your guns, Cartham.  She doesn’t really want all your guns up there, either._ ’

Uttering a very curt grunt at that reminder, Cartham didn’t let that bother him too much, either.  True enough, when he’d told her that he owned nearly fifty guns and rifles, she’d leveled a look at him and had told him, point blank, that she wasn’t okay with having a healthy arsenal in the same home as her.  But then, she’d gone on to suggest that he build a secured room in part of the main floor where he could easily store most of them.  Well, first, she’d wanted all of them, locked away, but he’d talked her into allowing him to keep one nearby for protection, and, given that all of his firearms were kept in a highly secured room back in Maine, he figured it was fair enough.

“You know, if you’re just going to stand around all day while I unpack everything, then you’re going to be buying my dinner tonight,” Kelly called from the kitchen without looking up from the huge box of pots and pans that had arrived a couple days ago.

“I’m supervising,” he told her.  “Just leave some of those, and I’ll put them away.”

Kelly snorted indelicately and continued to pull items out of the box.  “Yeah, well, I want to get all of this put away before tomorrow.”

He nodded since that made sense.  It was pure luck, really, that they were able to move in before she arrived, in the first place, and all of the furnishings for the bedrooms were delivered yesterday except for Cartham’s bed, and that would be delivered later on today.  “What time’s Bellaniece getting here?”

“Her plane is supposed to get in at ten,” she said, sounding a little preoccupied.  “I wish she was bringing Lexi, but Gin and Cain really wanted to keep her—something about wanting to have a little girl around for a while . . .”

Cartham nodded toward the empty space where he’d already told the delivery guys to put the entertainment stand.  “Probably for the best,” he said.  “Rugrats don’t tend to care for me.”

She made a face, but broke into a small smile.  “It’s your smell,” she teased.

He grunted and shot her a ‘We-Are-Not-Amused’ look.  “Keep it up, missy,” he grumbled.

She laughed and winked at him, but said nothing else as she continued to unpack the boxes.

 

* * *

 

 

“This place is pretty neat,” Bellaniece said as she stepped past Kelly, into the living room of the loft apartment.  Bright eyes, softly glowing as she slowly scanned the entirety of the place, including the very high ceiling, she nodded.  “I can’t wait to see what you do with this place . . .”

Kelly laughed.  “Well, that’s kind of up to Cartham,” she mused.  “I mean, strictly speaking, he owns the place.  I’m just renting from him.”

Bellaniece lowered her chin, leveled a look at Kelly.  “That’s right.  This Cartham . . . He’s one of Daddy’s hunters, right?”

Kelly shrugged, closing the door before turning to let her purse drop onto the small table nearby.  “He is,” she allowed, purposefully maintaining a very neutral tone of voice.  “He’s not scary or anything, though.  Well, if you don’t mind biker-types . . .”

Bellaniece blinked.  “Biker-type?” she echoed.  “The fat and hairy biker-type or the hot as hell biker-type?”

Rolling her eyes as she led Bellaniece through the apartment and toward the metal staircase that led to the bedrooms above, she wrinkled her nose.  “Can’t say I’ve noticed,” she lied.  “This is your room.  That one next door is mine, and that one across the hall is Cartham’s.  He said he wanted that one because it’s closest to the stairs.”

“Oh?  Does he keep weird hours?”

Kelly snorted.  “No, he’s just paranoid and positive that someone’s eventually going to break in.”

“Are you telling me,” Bellaniece began in an exaggeratedly slow tone, “that you’re willingly renting a room off a guy with weird, doomsday delusions?”

“Well, he does have a point.  I mean, if someone found out where he lives—if they wanted to get at him for some reason—say, he hunted their father or brother or something—”

She nodded.  “All right, sure, but you know, my brother-in-law is Ryomaru, and I have to say, that guy is far more cautious than most anyone around, and even he doesn’t plant himself as close to the door as he could.”

“He doesn’t take extra precautions?”

Bellaniece shrugged.  “Not really—unless you consider his, uh, killer cat to be an extra precaution.”

Kelly blinked.  “Your . . . _dog_ . . . brother-in-law . . . has a . . . cat . . .?”

Wrinkling her nose as she dropped the suitcase on the bed, Bellaniece spared a moment to flick her hand in blatant dismissal.  “If you ask Ryomaru, he got the cat for Nezumi to convince her to move in with him after he made her his mate.  If you ask Nezumi, she’s Ryomaru’s cat—and sometimes, his underpants.  It’s a long story.”

Opening and closing her mouth a few times, Kelly slowly shook her head.  “Just from that one statement, I have so many questions, but, to be honest, I’m not sure I want any of them answered . . .”

Bellaniece laughed.  “I can explain if you really want me to,” she offered.

Kelly shook her head and stepped past Bellaniece to open the suitcase instead.  “Seriously, I think I’m better off, not knowing.  Besides, Cartham offered to take us out for lunch when he gets back from the contractor’s office.”

“I can’t wait to meet this mysterious biker-boy—” Cutting herself off abruptly, Bellaniece snapped her fingers and pointed at Kelly.  “Is that boy as in, man, or boi with an i?”

She snorted, carefully pulling two of Bellaniece’s dresses out of the suitcase and shaking them out as she stepped over to the closet.  “Bois with an i don’t ride motorcycles, do they?”

Bellaniece wrinkled her nose.  “I just wondered because I got to talking to one of the attendants during the flight, and he just broke up with his boyfriend, and he mentioned that he’d be staying in Vegas for a couple days before taking off for Boston.”

“Oh, you’re not fixing your father’s hunter up with a flight attendant,” Kelly grumbled.

“But it might be fun!  Maybe Cartham would like to fly the friendly skies!”

Kelly cleared her throat, hid a smile as she carefully hung the dresses in the closet.  “He’s not gay.”

Bellaniece was silent for a full second, and Kelly could sense the wheels, turning in her best friend’s head.  “Do you know this . . . first hand, Kel?”

Kelly fought down an immediate flush that threatened to break over her skin and shook her head, taking her time, straightening the dresses to give herself a few moments to gather her wits.  “Not first hand,” she replied in what she hoped was a casual tone, “and I can’t say I’ve given it much thought.”

Bellaniece sighed.  “You know, you’d think that I’d have met Daddy’s hunters before or that I’d at least know what they look like, but I don’t.  I guess I hadn’t really realized that he even had hunters until a few years ago . . . I think Daddy kept them away from the house when I was little, but I don’t think he does that anymore.  I mean, Gin mentioned something about having Cartham over to dinner once.  I asked Daddy about that the other day, and he said that he realized it wasn’t really something that should be avoided, especially since Sebastian is going to be tai-youkai one day, too . . .”

Kelly considered that as she stepped back, allowing Bellaniece to put the rest of her things away.  She supposed that she’d never really thought about that, but it was true, as far as she could tell.  As much time as she’d spent with Bellaniece and Cain over the years, she’d never, ever heard a whisper about any of the people that Cain might well employ, and she could only remember, having met Ben Philips, Cain’s art manager whom she later learned was also his head general, too, once in passing.

Bellaniece cleared her throat, but something about the noise drew Kelly’s attention.  She knew that sound.  It was something her friend tended to do when she wanted to change the subject, but wasn’t entirely sure, just what Kelly might think of it.  Biting her lip, she turned away from the closet and smiled a little too brightly, which only reinforced Kelly’s initial thought on the matter.  “Spit it out,” she said, opting not to beat around the bush.

Bellaniece grimaced, but her smile took on a sheepish sort of lilt.  “Uh, Kichiro . . . Well, he asked me if I could take a look at your scarring.  He just wants to know how you’re doing.”

“Maybe later,” Kelly muttered.  “I mean, you just got here, so—”

“You’re wearing clothes that cover you from head to toe,” Bellaniece cut in gently.  “Are they still bad?”

Kelly sighed, sinking down on the edge of the bed as her shoulders slumped in defeat.  “They’re bad enough,” she said in a tone just above a whisper.  “They’re . . . They’re a little better, though.”  Then, she managed a wan little smile.  “A lot better than looking like an overcooked bit of fish skin, so, I’ll take that.”

Bellaniece winced at Kelly’s attempt at humor.  Then, she stepped over and took Kelly’s arm, gently pushing the sleeve up a good few inches and slowly turning the limb to get a better look.  “It doesn’t look bad,” she finally stated, and she sounded more relieved than she should have, in Kelly’s estimation.  “I brought you more of the cream, though—and a special one that Kichiro’s mama made, especially for you.  She swears that it’ll help even more, and there really isn’t anyone as well versed in herbal medicines as Kagome.”

“Thanks,” she said, relieved that Bellaniece seemed to be happy enough with her progress—happy enough not to hop right onto her phone to call her mate, anyway.  “I’ll give it a try.”

Bellaniece nodded as she let go of Kelly’s arm to dig the jars of cream out of her suitcase.  The regular ones, she set aside.  The larger one that was unlabeled except for a sticker on top that had her name on it, Bellaniece handed over with an authoritative air.  “If you like it, if it helps you, I’ll tell Kagome.  She said to let her know if you’d like more.  I don’t know what all she put in there, but she said she put in things to help the itching that you probably feel as well as some stuff that should, she said, help to even out your skin tone, including the scarring.”

Unsure what to expect, Kelly carefully removed the lid and sniffed gingerly at the off-white cream.  It was thick, had a very herbal, but not medicinal scent that wouldn’t have been very noticeable at all to a human, she figured.  She scooped out a bit on her fingertips and slowly rubbed it into the arm that Bellaniece had exposed.

It only took a few seconds for a very slight but very nice tingle to erupt under her skin, tissue deep.  It felt highly invigorating, and the still-lingering itch that she tended to experience on a constant basis—enough to feel it, but she’d learned to ignore it—seemed to fade.  She heaved a sigh of relief without realizing it, and Bellaniece smiled.  “Kagome said that it could be beneficial to you, as well, if you keep it in the refrigerator and apply it cold.”

“I’ll try that, too,” Kelly remarked, scooping out more of the cream as she pushed her other sleeve up.  “This stuff is great . . . Tell her thanks, will you?”

Bellaniece laughed.  “Absolutely,” she agreed.  “Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Cartham said as he pulled out a chair at the small table in the bright and welcoming bistro where he’d texted to tell Kelly he’d meet her and Bellaniece for lunch.  It wasn’t far from the contractor’s office where he’d been discussing the secured room he wanted to have built in the bottom of the warehouse as soon as possible.  He’d been very clear when he’d said that he wanted the room to be absolutely impenetrable, and the plans that the contractor had developed hadn’t disappointed him.  In fact, he’d gone one further by laying out a design that would add onto the floor for the apartment above that extended all the way across the back of the warehouse, leaving space below for whatever they wanted to add in beside the security room for his guns.  All totaled, the quote was excellent, too, and Cartham had given him the go-ahead to get the necessary permits to begin construction as soon as possible.  “Did you two already order?”

Bellaniece blinked and stared at him.  Cartham intercepted the stare, which should have put a stop to it, but it didn’t.  No, if anything, those sapphire blue eyes that were the same shade as her father’s, only seemed to widen, and, as far as Cartham could tell, she didn’t appear to have heard him speak, either.  Shifting his gaze to the side, he glanced at Kelly, who peered over at her friend and then, rolled her eyes.  A moment later, Bellaniece jumped slightly—had Kelly kicked her?—and giggled.  “So, you’re Cartham,” she said pleasantly, reaching across the table to shake his hand.  “Pleased to meet you—finally.”

“Likewise,” he replied, shaking the hand she offered, but letting go quickly enough.  “You, uh, look like your dad.”

She laughed.  “Yeah, I get that a lot.  I’m not sure how to take that, but I tend to think Daddy’s pretty, um . . . _pretty_ , so I guess it was a compliment . . .”

“I, uh, just meant your . . . your coloring and stuff,” Cartham muttered, reaching for a menu and promptly pulling it open in front of his face.

“Speaking of ‘pretty’—”

“I think I’ll have the cod,” Kelly cut in quickly.

Cartham peered around the menu, only to witness the narrow-eyed look she was shooting Bellaniece.

‘ _Women are weird,_ ’ he thought as he turned his attention back to the menu once more.

‘ _Oh, I don’t know . . . Bellaniece seems to approve of your looks, at least . . ._ ’

Cartham grunted since he really didn’t think that his youkai’s assessment was valid—or necessary.

‘ _Don’t discount it, buddy.  Women talk, right?  So, would it hurt to have Kelly’s bestie, talking you up to her?_ ’

That, in Cartham’s opinion, meant nothing at all, and he snorted inwardly.  ‘ _She’s trouble, that one,_ ’ he mused.  ‘ _An instigator, just like her damn dad . . ._ ’

‘ _Should you really be calling your boss an instigator?_ ’

‘ _If the shoe fits . . ._ ’

His youkai snorted.  Loudly.

At least the discussion turned when the server approached the table, and he hoped that, by the time they were finished, placing their orders, that the topic of conversation would change directions entirely.  After the server hurried away to place their orders, he sat back, watched the girls in silence.  Something about good friends, he figured.  The way they were carrying on, it would have been hard to imagine that they hadn’t spoken for months just prior to Bellaniece’s visit.  Even so, he had to admit, he rather enjoyed, seeing Kelly smile as she talked in hushed tones to Bellaniece, telling her about her job, about her life, here in Vegas.  It struck him, not for the first time, just how content Kelly seemed.  Of course, he didn’t really know here before Vegas, but from everything he’d gathered, he also knew that she wasn’t happy in Maine . . .

Bellaniece leaned in, whispered something to Kelly that made her laugh and quickly, adamantly, shake her head, and then, the two slowly—almost comically slowly, and if Cartham weren’t the recipient of their collective attention, he might have found it more amusing than he did—turned their heads to eye him and then, suddenly they smiled.

“Aight, what?” he asked, kind of dreading their answer.  “Why are you both staring at me like that?”

Kelly blinked innocently and reached for a pretzel stick from the basket that the server had dropped off.  “Don’t be paranoid,” she chastised.  “And whatever Belle says, it’s all her, not me.  I’m not asking _anything_.”

Somehow, that didn’t reassure him in the least . . .

Bellaniece giggled, slipping her fingers over the base of her wine glass that only held ice water, fingers splayed as she idly moved the glass in the small circular motion.  “Can I ask you something, Cartham?”  She raised her eyebrows.  “Just Cartham, right?  Nothing else?  Kind of like you’re the Madonna of Daddy’s hunters?”

Cartham rolled his eyes.  “Not hardly . . . but, yes, just Cartham’s fine,” he replied, feeling the corners of his mouth, twitching, but he didn’t smile.

Bellaniece nodded slowly, deliberately. “Well, Cartham, my mate is Kichiro Izayoi— _Dr_. Kichiro Izayoi—have you heard of him?”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard him mentioned a time or two, but if you ask your dad, he calls him Dr. Assmonkey, I believe . . .”

Her lips twitched, too, and Kelly shifted hers to the side in an effort not to laugh, outright.  “Just so we’re clear, then, my mate is _the_ world-renowned plastic surgeon, Dr. Kichiro Izayoi, whose distinctions include, but are not limited to, refining the marking process—among other things.  What you may not know is that he’s also a very distinguished medical researcher, and for the last while, he’s been researching the prevention of accidental mating, using condoms.  Would you be interested in participating in the case study?  You’d have to find a willing partner but somehow . . .” She paused here, both for dramatic effect, as well as to cast Kelly a very meaningful glance that the latter summarily ignored.  “I feel that won’t really be a problem for you.”

It was a damn good thing that he wasn’t drinking anything—or eating anything, for that matter.  As it was, he could feel his cheeks heating up in a rather profound blush.  “Stay out of my pants, Legacy-of-Cain.”

Both girls laughed at that, and Cartham was relieved when the server approached the table once more, this time, with a very large tray of food and drinks.

‘ _Well, you know, you volunteered to take them out to lunch, so there’s really no one to blame but yourself._ ’

Stifling a sigh at his youkai-voice’s cryptic assessment, Cartham refused to answer as he tried to brace himself for the rest of the meal—and wondered if it’d seem odd if he decided to suddenly ask them to pack up all the food to go . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_AO3  
> _** Elizabeth ——— cutechick18 ——— minthegreen
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _It’s gonna be a long ‘few days’, isn’t it_ …?


	14. Vacation

Cartham stifled a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back slightly, pasting a rather menacing scowl on his face as he stood guard over Kelly and Bellaniece as the two chattered happily where they were sitting at the blackjack table in the casino—not the one where Kelly worked—that the girls had dragged them into today.  Bellaniece had insisted that no visit to Vegas would be complete without the mandatory gambling, which was entirely stupid, really.  Vegas was known for lots of things, and gambling was only one of those things, and, considering they’d come home last night on the tipsy side and with a marriage certificate in their hands that proclaimed them, ‘Mrs. and Mrs. Crotchcat-Boozewanger’, he had opted not to let them run off without him, ever, ever again . . .

‘ _Yeah, about that . . . Shouldn’t you find out how they got any kind of identification that looked even remotely official in order to get that certificate, in the first place?_ ’

‘ _You kidding?  We’re in Vegas.  Finding fake documents probably wasn’t that difficult._ ’

‘ _But it kind of makes Bellaniece a polygamist, doesn’t it?_ ’

‘ _Bellaniece Izayoi only has one husband.  Bellaniece . . . Crotchcat apparently only has a wife . . ._ ’

His youkai-voice sighed.  ‘ _I don’t know if it’s worse that they got married or if Bellaniece’s husband thought it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever heard._ ’

Cartham grunted, since he’d overheard that phone call—and the laughter on both sides of it.  ‘ _Cain was right._   _He_ is _kind of an assmonkey . . ._ ’

‘ _Yeah, but you’re missing the biggest question of them all._ ’

‘ _And what’s that?_ ’

‘ _. . . Do you think those two kissed after the wedding . . .?_ ’

‘. . . _Shut up._ ’

Before the wise-cracking voice could respond, the buzz of his cell phone drew his attention, and he pulled it out of his pocket and frowned.  “Cartham,” he said when he connected the call.

“Hey, I’ve got a job for you.  I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Cain asked.

“Uh, no, but let me step outside . . .”  Lowering the phone, he stepped over to the girls.  “I’m going to take a call.  Don’t get married again or anything while I’m gone.”

Kelly rolled her eyes but wiggled her fingers over her shoulder to indicate she heard him.

He wasn’t entirely satisfied that he really could leave those two alone, but he didn’t have much of a choice, and he headed outside, instead.

“Go ahead,” he said, putting the phone back to his ear as he quickly slipped into the shadow of the building front behind a very large planter that partially obstructed him from view.

Cain sighed.  “Well, it’s a little different.  I just need you to meet up with a guy there in Las Vegas and pick up a written statement for me.”

“A written statement?  He can’t just mail it?”

“It’s pretty sensitive stuff.  I’d just feel better if you’d get it—I don’t want to take the chance that someone inadvertently gets their hands on it.  Moe says that you’re set up on the network there, right?  Just scan it all and upload it to the secured server.  File the original away till the next time you fly out here.”

“Yeah, okay,” Cartham agreed.  “Not a problem.”

“I’ll send you the contact information in a little while.”

“Aiyuh.”

Cain suddenly chuckled.  “So, how’s Kelly’s visit with Belle going?”

It took Cartham a moment for his brain to process the sudden change in topics, but he supposed that the business portion of the call was done, so, he headed back toward the doors of the casino.  “Not bad,” he allowed, stepping through the automatic doors and into the lobby.  “You should probably know, though, I think your daughter’s a menace.”

“A . . .?” Cain coughed.  “A menace?”

Cartham grunted, narrowing his eyes as he scanned the casino.  The girls weren’t at the blackjack table anymore, but he spotted them a couple seconds later, over by some slot machines.  Bellaniece was playing while Kelly leaned over her shoulder, and they looked like they were having a good time, which only worried Cartham a little bit.  “That’s right, Zelig,” he replied.  “She’s a terrible influence on Kelly.”

Cain cleared his throat like he was trying not to laugh outright.  It figured.  “Is that right?”

“Considering they went out last night, got a little tipsy, then got married?  I’d say so.”

“They . . . They what?”

Cartham snorted indelicately.  “Mrs. and Mrs. Crotchcat-Boozewanger.  That’s what the license says.”

“Uh—Wow,” Cain breathed.  “Well, if they . . . got married . . . then it would have taken both of them to do that, don’t you think?” he pointed out reasonably.

“Maybe, but if your spawn hadn’t been here, then it never would have happened.”

Cain heaved a long, drawn out sigh.  Then, he did bark out a terse laugh.  “And, uh . . . Which one is my . . . spawn . . .?”

Again, Cartham snorted.  “The first one.”

Another delicate cough followed in close order by a round of throat clearing.  “I see.”

“Do you?” Cartham challenged mildly.  “Do you, really?”

“Well, they did like to pretend they were brides when they were little girls . . .”

“You’re not funny, Zelig.  I’m pretty sure that the impulse control problem comes from you.”

Cain sighed.  “That’s probably true,” he allowed.  “Tell the girls, um, congratulations, and I’ll send you the contact information.”

Cartham grunted and ended the call.  Somehow, he didn’t think that Cain was taking the whole thing seriously, and didn’t that just figure?  He made a face as he headed toward the girls in question.

“I won almost two hundred bucks,” Kelly informed him when he stopped behind them.  “Well, it was closer to two-fifty, but I don’t count the fifty since that’s how much I got in credits, to start with . . .”

“Does that mean you’re buying dinner tonight?” he teased.

She laughed, her eyes, shining brightly when she glanced over her shoulder at him.  “I can do that,” she said with a shrug.  “Belle’s got another ten bucks in credits before she calls it good.”

Bellaniece giggled, hitting the button to start the spinner on the slot machine.  “I’d be happy if I could just break even,” she said with a melodramatic sigh.

Cartham winced at the ridiculously loud sound of the slot machine’s audio.  Add to that, the rest of the fairly obnoxious noise level, and he could only hope that the ladies would take pity on him soon enough.  How they could tolerate it was entirely beyond him.  Then again, he’d heard some of the music that Kelly seemed to think was good, and he supposed that maybe he could understand it, after all . . .

“If I’d known you were coming sooner, I would have checked to see if I could get tickets to a show somewhere,” Kelly went on thoughtfully.  “Nate Crawford is doing a residency at the Piedmont-Neumar, and I hear it’s fantastic . . .”

“Nate Crawford?” Bellaniece echoed.  “I love him!  But I suppose it’s sold out, months in advance.”

Cartham nearly snorted out loud.  He’d heard Nate Crawford on the radio a few times, and he couldn’t say he was a fan, given that the squirrely little boy who looked like he’d barely emerged from puberty despite the claims that he was almost thirty-five only seemed to know how to squeak out ridiculously moody emo whine-fests.  Females seemed to think he was dreamy or some shit, though . . .

Kelly sighed.  “Well, we could catch a movie or something . . .”

That got Bellaniece’s attention quickly enough, and she turned abruptly, eyes wide as she met Kelly’s gaze.  “Oh, what about that new Bryan Hockings movie? _Heaven Beach?_ ”

“I think that might be playing at the Times,” Kelly replied, sounding entirely too excited, in Cartham’s estimation.  “Does that sound all right to you?” she went on, turning her attention to him.

He chuckled.  “Hell, no,” he said, stepping back when Bellaniece stood up.  “I’m not watching ‘heaven’ anything . . . You two go on, though.  I’ve got a quick job to take care of.”

He didn’t miss the way Kelly’s amusement seemed to instantly die, the way her brows furrowed as unmistakable concern surfaced instead.  “A job?”

He gave a shrug to downplay what he’d said, even as his cell phone buzzed to let him know that he’d just received a message.  Sparing a moment to check it, he wasn’t surprised to see the name and address of the man he was supposed to meet, but the information given was for a guy in Reno, and that, in Cartham’s estimation, wasn’t quite the quick trip that Cain had claimed it was.  A good twelve to fourteen hours, round trip?  He supposed that it couldn’t be helped.  “Yeah, but it’s no big thing.  Just picking up something for Zelig, is all.”

He could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t sure, whether or not she believed him, but in the end, she nodded.  “You have to do that tonight?”

Chuckling as he led the girls through the casino, he shrugged again.  “If it gets me out of your chick flick?  The sooner, the better, I always say.”

Kelly snorted and rolled her eyes.  Cartham intercepted the look and winked at her.

 

* * *

 

 

Kelly squeezed the water out of her hair with a fluffy pink towel as she padded out of the bathroom, comfortably wrapped in the thick, white terrycloth robe.  Bellaniece was in her room—she’d said she was going to call Kichiro—and, though it wasn’t that late, she might have gone to bed already, as she had last night, too.  She’d apologized this morning for turning in before nine instead of staying up to catch up, but Kelly hadn’t minded.  After all, Bellaniece was still likely on Japan time.

The place was so quiet, though, and to Kelly, it was more than a little unsettling.  Then again . . . Frowning thoughtfully at the sense of emptiness that she couldn’t help but feel, she let out a deep breath and tried to distract herself by grabbing the jar of Kagome’s salve off her dresser.  She’d already applied the regular cream in the bathroom since it absorbed better if she worked it in while her skin was still damp.

Cartham had said earlier that he had to go to Reno to meet the guy—his job.  After reminding her to make sure she locked everything up tight, he’d told her that he’d be back sometime tomorrow morning.  She and Bellaniece had gone to the movie and then out to eat, so it wasn’t until they’d gotten home about an hour ago that she’d felt that strange sense of emptiness in the apartment.

‘ _Don’t be silly.  He said he’s just meeting some guy to pick up something for Cain.  It’s not even a real hunt,_ ’ she reminded herself as she sat on the edge of the bed and opened the jar of skin cream.  ‘ _He’ll be fine, and even then, he’s a hunter for a reason—one of Cain’s top hunters, he said.  That means that he’s good at what he does._ ’

True enough.  She made a face.  Too bad that the irrational part of her brain didn’t seem to want to listen.

She sighed as she turned to prop her foot up on the bed, letting the robe fall open to expose her left leg.  She couldn’t help the little moan that slipped out of her as she worked the salve into her skin.  The gentle tingle soothed away the slight itchiness, just as it had done to her arms yesterday when she’d first tried it out.  The scarring didn’t look any paler, but then, she couldn’t really judge that just yet.  At least on her legs, there weren’t as many traversing scars.

The tap on the door sounded mere moments before it opened, and Bellaniece peered around the door with an impish smile.  “Kichiro says to tell you that he’s glad we’re having fun,” she said.  “You ready for bed?”

Kelly shook her head and paused long enough to smile, albeit wanly, over her shoulder.  “No, I’m not really tired yet . . . Just putting this on,” she said, holding up the jar with one hand as she pulled her other leg up to repeat the massage.  “How’s Isabelle?”

“At school,” Bellaniece replied, wandering around the room as though she were investigating her surroundings.  “Kichiro promised to give her kisses for me . . .”

“School,” Kelly echoed.  She laughed, shook her head slowly.  “Sometimes, it seems so weird.  Sometimes, it seems like just yesterday that we were still in school . . .”

Opening the closet, Bellaniece idly shifted through Kelly’s modest collection of clothes.  “I know, right?  But other times, those days seem so long ago . . .”

“Yeah, but you’re happy now, and I . . .” Kelly bit her lip and smiled to herself.  “I’m getting there . . . Maybe . . .”

“Mm . . . because of a certain hunter?” Bellaniece asked in what she thought was an innocent enough tone.

Kelly wrinkled her nose.  “No . . . maybe a little . . . I don’t know.”

Bellaniece snorted.  It echoed in the confines of the closet, and Kelly giggled.  “He’s hot, but you know that.  I mean, you have to.  And he seems to like you quite a bit.”

Kelly sighed.  “You’re reading more into it than you ought to,” she insisted.  “We’re . . . We’re friends.  The only reason we even met was because your dad sent him out here to find me.”

“Kel, you’re living with him.   He moved here for you, and—”

“He didn’t move here for me,” Kelly cut in quickly, even as a hot flush flooded her cheeks.  “He just . . . _moved_ here.  That’s all.”

“Don’t be dumb,” Bellaniece scoffed.  “Dumb doesn’t look good on you.  Of _course_ , he did.  How old is he?  Almost as old as Daddy, right?  A guy that old doesn’t just up and move for no reason when he’s been living in Maine for . . .” She trailed off, closing the closet door.  “Well, for a long time.  You’re here, living with him, and you can’t tell me that all the furnishings and stuff were his choices because I know you, and he doesn’t seem like the ‘make sure you have a nice blanket on the back of the sofa’ kind of guy.”

Bellaniece’s words might well be what Kelly wanted to hear, but even so, she shook her head.  “At most, he’s just worried about me, living out here, all alone,” she insisted.

Bellaniece sighed, crossing her arms over her chest as she paced the floor, clearly agitated at Kelly’s pessimistic attitude.

She couldn’t help it.  Somewhere along the line, she’d learned, hadn’t she, not to expect too much, maybe not even to hope for too much.  It sounded so much worse if she put it into those terms.  She was pragmatic, that was all.  And she knew . . .

“I hate to tell you, sweetie, but I can’t remember the last time you were this . . . content,” Bellaniece went on.  “Even back before . . . before the fire . . . You were always so restless, like you were looking for something, and maybe that’s why . . .” She stopped by the window, peered out at the lights of the surrounding city.  “But you’re not like that now.  You’re . . . You’re peaceful—I don’t know if that’s the right word . . . And I’m so happy for you.”

Kelly hesitated for a moment before shrugging off the top of the robe so that she could continue, applying the cream.  Bellaniece glanced at her, only to stop and stare with a thoughtful frown.  “The scarring looks much better,” she finally concluded.

Kelly wrinkled her nose.  “Wish it would speed up,” she muttered.

Bellaniece stepped away from the window and continued her trek across the floor.  “I know you do,” she said, her tone, taking on a placating sort of lilt.  “I wish it would, too, but . . .”

After a moment of silence, Kelly glanced over her shoulder at Bellaniece, only to do a double take when she saw the deeper concern on her face.  “Wha-a-a-at?” she asked slowly.

Bellaniece let out her breath in a slow whoosh.  “Your back,” she said quietly, letting her arms drop as she stepped over to the bed and reached around to scoop some of the cream out of the jar.  “I guess it makes sense.  You can’t reach back here, can you?”

Kelly made a face.  She’d seen in the mirror for herself, what Bellaniece was talking about.  Because she couldn’t reach her own back, the scarring was still pretty raw, angry-looking.  Despite that, she still let her eyes close for a moment as Bellaniece worked the cream into her skin.

“I’ll talk to Kichiro, see if he has any ideas,” Bellaniece went on.

“Thanks,” Kelly replied, more for the help than for the offer to talk to her mate about it.

“Do these hurt worse than the others?”

“No, just itchy,” Kelly said.  “I’m used to it, but sometimes . . . It can be so maddening.  I know, they said that scratching can do more damage, and I try not to, but there are times when I think I might go crazy . . .”

“Yeah, don’t scratch,” Bellaniece agreed.  “Kichiro says that the itchiness is a positive, even though it sucks.  Your back doesn’t even look that bad, either.  It’s just that the others—the ones that you’ve been treating—are a lot more even—a lot smoother.  Just goes to show how far you’ve come . . .” She scooped out more cream and sighed again.  “I’m not trying to diminish your feelings or anything.  That sounded really condescending, didn’t it?”

“No, I know,” Kelly said.  “You didn’t . . . Sometimes, I think that they do look better, but then, I wonder if it’s all in my head.  Like, do they really look better or do I just think they do because that’s what I want?”

“No, they definitely do,” Bellaniece insisted.  “I’m not just saying that.  Lying to you . . . Well, it wouldn’t really be helping you, either.”

Shrugging the robe back up over herself when Bellaniece sat back, Kelly sighed and leaned back against her, resting her head on Bellaniece’s shoulder.  “I’m sorry I pushed you away,” she said.  “I know I said that before, but . . . I should have tried to explain to you, how I felt.  Maybe—”

“And how would you have done that when you didn’t really understand it, anyway?” Bellaniece challenged quietly, almost philosophically, slipping her arms around Kelly, giving her a little squeeze.  “Don’t ever apologize to me for doing something you need to do for yourself.  I missed you, sure, but all I wanted was for you to be all right with yourself.”

Kelly laughed, but it was a sad kind of laugh.  “Life got complicated, didn’t it?”

“Sure.  I’m just so glad to have you back in my life again.”

Kelly sighed.  “I wish you could stay longer,” she mused.

“Next time,” Bellaniece promised.  “Or you could come visit me in Japan.  The shopping there is pretty fantastic.”

“With my luck, I’d get lost somewhere, and they’d just look at me since I don’t know any Japanese.”

“Nah, they’re really polite, and many of them do know some English—the basics, at least.”

“Hmm.”

Bellaniece kissed Kelly’s temple just before Kelly sat up and scooted off the bed to get out her pajamas.  Bellaniece was already in hers, which didn’t mean much, given that she knew well enough that Bellaniece liked to get into her comfier clothing early enough in the evening as long as she wasn’t planning on going out.

“I called Gin, too, just to make sure that Lexi’s not being any trouble.  She’s not, of course—or maybe she is, but Gin would never say.  Then again, she did mention that Bastian doesn’t seem too interested in playing with Lexi very much, but he’s been humoring her, especially since he’s looking forward to the other boys’ arrivals soon enough.”  Suddenly, Bellaniece giggled.  “I’ll bet Daddy told Bastian that if he wasn’t nice to Lexi that he’d call and cancel the invitations to have the boys there, too . . .”

Kelly rolled her eyes.  “Well, I guess that’s possible,” she allowed slowly, considering Bellaniece’s words.  “I remember that one summer when he promised to take us to Fun Town, and we kept pestering him about how much longer it’d be until he told us that if we kept asking, he wasn’t going to take us . . .”

Bellaniece snorted and flicked her hand dismissively.  “You know he wouldn’t have made good on that threat.”

Kelly laughed.  “I know . . . But it did shut us up, didn’t it?”

Bellaniece laughed, too.  That was the year that they had discovered boys, too, if memory served.  Looking back now, Kelly almost felt sorry for the rather shy man.  When they finally had gone to Fun Town, they had spent nearly the whole time, trying to flirt with boys while trying not to get caught by Cain.  At that time, she’d thought that they had done a pretty good job.  Now, though, she knew better.  Cain knew.  Of course, he did.  After all, a couple of pre-teen girls had nothing on the wisdom that he possessed . . .

“So, tell me about this gala of yours,” Bellaniece prompted, breaking the companionable silence that had fallen while Kelly donned her pajamas.

Kelly blinked and shot Bellaniece a quizzical glance.  “Gala?”

“Yes, the gala.  The invitation’s there on your dresser.”

Making a face, Kelly pulled a pale purple, long-sleeved tee-shirt over her head.  “It’s just the casino’s version of a Christmas party, sort of,” she replied.

“Sounds like fun!” Bellaniece said.  “Too bad I didn’t wait a couple more weeks, huh?”

“Oh, I’m not going,” Kelly said.

“Why not?  Gambling?  Dancing?  Charity?  Cartham in a tux?  What’s not to enjoy?”

Kelly scooped up the robe and the towel she’d used on her head and hurried off to the bathroom to put them away.  “You’re assuming he’d go, which I doubt.  Anyway, finding something to wear to it?  I’ll pass,” she said, slapping the wall panel beside the door to turn off the bathroom light.

“Kel—”

“It’s not a big deal,” she insisted.  Really, she’d forgotten all about it, hadn’t actually considered attending, anyway.  Even then, she hadn’t mentioned it to Cartham, mostly because she had no intention of going, and she wasn’t lying when she’d said that Cartham just didn’t seem to be the type who would even enjoy such a thing, so if he did go, it would only be out of some misplaced sense that he had to humor her, anyway.  “Besides, I spend enough time at work.”

Bellaniece didn’t look like she wanted to let it go, but she gave a little shrug.  “All right; all right,” she relented.  “Should we see what’s on TV?”

Satisfied that Bellaniece was going to let the subject drop, Kelly nodded.  “Okay,” she said, leading the way to the door.  Bellaniece stood up and followed her out of the room .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> **_Reviewers_ **
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_MMorg  
> _** — — —
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_AO3  
> _** Elizabeth ——— Calvarez ——— cutechick18 ——— minthegreen ——— TheWonderfulShoe ——— Paola
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _The gala?  I don’t think so_ …
> 
>  


	15. Contemplation

Cartham pulled the motorcycle into the warehouse and let it roll into the spot, over to the side between the slightly beat up, but still very reliable truck and the wall, making a mental note to give Moe Jamison a call later on since he’d already asked his fellow hunter to come out and set up better security.  There were, of course, locks and even some barebones surveillance cameras set up near the doors, but the system that was in place was pretty old.  Even though he’d rather upgrade everything as soon as possible, it occurred to him that maybe he ought to wait until the secured room for his guns was completed so that he wouldn’t have to ask Moe to come out more than once.

Retrieving the manila envelope from the saddlebag on his bike, Cartham tucked it under his arm as he headed for the stairs.  He’d hooked up his computer in his room for now—at least, until his gun room was completed.  That would be good enough to use as his office, too, especially since he rarely ever actually needed anything of the sort.  About the only times he bothered with computers, really, was when he needed to check his account balances and stuff like that, or if he needed to pull information off of the secured network—or upload information, as the case might be this time . . . Then again, Cain had called him later last night and had told him that he’d just realized that his daughter could just as easily bring the papers back with her.  He’d admitted that he hadn’t thought of it sooner, given that keeping Bellaniece out of tai-youkai business had become second nature to him over the years.  It was all good to Cartham, anyway.

To be honest, he had no idea, just what kind of information the small vole-youkai had given him.  The man’s beady black eyes had darted around the area so fast, his pale skin, almost sallow in the yellowish light of the weak porch lamp beside the door . . . He’d invited Cartham in, but only after checking his ID card—a special one that Cain had given him that identified him as a hunter in the service of the North American tai-youkai and something that Cartham rarely ever had to use.

The vole’s tiny house was as nondescript as he himself was: just a collection of slightly grayed walls with wood floors that weren’t really brown nor were they completely gray, either . . . Old but clean furniture in the same kind of blah, drab fabric, a lamp without a shade—just a bare lightbulb, burning in the straight stick of a fixture.  He’d handed over the envelope, chattering under his breath about the relief he felt in doing so.  A nervous sort of weak chuckle, here and there to punctuate it all, and, in the end, Cartham had taken the envelope and left.

By the time he’d finished with the vole, it was almost two in the morning, and he’d considered, getting a hotel room, but that thought had only lingered in his head for a few minutes.  He wasn’t really tired, and, given the way the guy had acted, Cartham had to admit to himself that he was feeling just a little sense of urgency to get the documents back to the relative safety of his home, even if he still had no idea, just what it was.

He let out a deep breath as he stepped onto the landing in front of the apartment door, pausing long enough to press the ‘lockdown’ button on the control panel nearby that secured the outer perimeter of the warehouse.  He couldn’t feel Kelly’s presence, but he knew she also had to work today.  At least, with her position as cashier manager, she only worked until one, maybe two, in the afternoon, and she got every weekend off, too.  Still, he couldn’t say he wasn’t just a little unsettled by the thinner quality of the place.  Funny, wasn’t it?  She wasn’t loud or anything, and it wasn’t as though she tried to draw attention to herself, but somehow, she still managed to imbue her presence into everything around him, and he wondered briefly if she thought the same things about him, too . . .

Bellaniece was sitting on the sofa, idly scrolling through something on her tablet with a cup of coffee in her other hand.  Dressed in a very pretty green skirt with a light, cream colored sweater, she sat, legs bent before her, feet tucked demurely to her side and under her, and she glanced up at Cartham when he stepped through the door, smiling instantly in greeting.

“Morning,” he mumbled, setting the envelope down long enough to shrug off his jacket, hanging it on the hook beside the door.  He started to pick up the documents again, but stopped, frowning at the packet thoughtfully, tapping the edge against the table.  “You talk to your dad?” he asked since Cain had mentioned that he’d talk to Bellaniece about bringing back the envelope.

She set the tablet aside and started to lift the cup of coffee to her lips.  “I did,” she said.  “This morning.  Is that the file I’m supposed to bring back for him?”

He didn’t answer, but he did step over to hand it to her before moving off to grab himself a cup of coffee, too.

“Kelly said that she’s taking off around noon,” Bellaniece went on, setting the envelope aside, turning on the sofa to watch Cartham instead.

“Aight,” Cartham replied, pulling a stoneware mug out of the cupboard.

She didn’t say anything else until he’d filled his mug and had sat down in the recliner nearby.  He started to reach for the television remote to see what was on the news, but she cleared her throat, drew his attention, and sat up a little straighter as she slipped her mug onto the coffee table.  “So, why did you want to move out here?” she asked without preamble, but her expression was entirely open, friendly, that he didn’t feel at all put off by her candor.

“Dunno,” he replied, quietly sipping his coffee.  “Guess I just wanted a change of scenery.”

Bellaniece considered his answer for a moment, slowly nodding, her gaze, clouding over slightly as she bit her bottom lip.  “You . . . You didn’t move here for Kelly, then,” she concluded, and to Cartham, she sounded a little . . . disappointed?  Then, she smiled again, but this one seemed a little more on the polite side of things.

Puzzled slightly by her reaction, Cartham frowned.  He wasn’t sure why it would matter to her other than the idea that she was Kelly’s friend, that she cared about Kelly, but before he could say something about it, she uttered a brisk little sigh and stood up, retrieving her coffee cup and heading over to the kitchen.  “Daddy said that you’ve been kind of taking care of Kel like she’s your own daughter,” Bellaniece went on.  “It’s really nice of you, but . . . but do you think that’s such a good idea?”

For some reason, the mention of Cain’s ridiculous assumption that Cartham’s feelings fell more on the fatherly side of things, Cartham grunted and rolled his eyes.  “Fat lot he knows,” he muttered under his breath before stubbornly sucking down the entire cup of coffee and ignoring the scalding heat of it that left his tongue tingling.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Cartham said, hauling himself out of his chair so that he could refill his mug, too.

She shot him a polite smile and moved over to retrieve the creamer from the refrigerator.  “Don’t get me wrong, here, Cartham,” she continued, giving the creamer a good shake.  “I like you.  You seem like a good man—a decent person.  It’s just . . .” She grimaced as she dumped creamer into her mug and put the bottle away again.  “Kelly’s vulnerable right now, you know?  And she . . .” Trailing off, she stuck her claw into her mug and idly swirled the coffee as she considered just what it was she wanted to say.  “Well, to be honest, I don’t know how she feels about you.”

“Is this really any of your business?” he asked, raising a pointed brow as he took his cup and stomped out of the kitchen again.  Unable to restrain the rise of irritation that Bellaniece had the absolute gall to question his motives, like she honestly believed that Cartham might be just playing with Kelly or some damn thing, it was all he could do to shove his emotions down, lest he choke on them instead.

“Yeah, it is,” Bellaniece insisted, following him back into the living room again, slipping back into her pose on the sofa once more, but she didn’t set the coffee mug aside.

“Actually, I don’t agree,” he shot back tightly, biting off his words before he ended up, saying a hell of a lot more than he already had.

Bellaniece sighed.  “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.  “I’m not trying to offend you. I just . . . worry about her.  I guess I always have.  Daddy said you talked to her parents before you found her, right?  So, you know, she didn’t come from a happy home—not even a _decent_ one; not really.  But Kel . . . She never says anything about it.  Not ever, and now . . .”  She sighed, made a face, sipped her coffee as she pondered her words.  “It’s just that, since I got here, I’ve _seen_ it.  She’s different.  I don’t mean that she’s different since the fire—I mean, she’s _different_ —more content—happier than I can remember her ever being before, and I . . .” Again, she sighed, shot him an almost apologetic kind of sad smile.  “You’re so, so good for her, Cartham—but . . . But you really could be so very, very bad for her, too.”

“I’m not going to hurt her,” he forced himself to say, forced himself to strive for a more even tone than he might have thought possible.

For some reason, Cartham’s words seemed to bother Bellaniece even more, and he had no idea, why.  Idly pushing her bronze hair back, tucking it behind her ear, she winced, almost seemed to be debating something in her own head.  At last, though, she sighed again, leveled a no-nonsense kind of look at him, and she didn’t look away.  “She was dating this guy a few months before she left Maine; did you know?  She didn’t think he was her mate, I don’t think, but it was good for her—at first.  They dated a while, and she liked him a lot, and then, we were talking one day.  She said that he was going to take her out for Valentine’s Day—make a big deal out of it.  She said . . .” Bellaniece grimaced.  “She said that she thought that it was ‘The Night’.  I was so excited for her, and I never stopped to think . . . But she didn’t call me the next day, which was weird because normally, we talked about everything.  I called her, though, and she . . . She was crying.  She was trying to pretend that she wasn’t, but I could hear it . . . She never said what happened, but I . . . I’m guessing that he saw her scars and freaked out . . . And after that, she stopped calling me, and eventually, she stopped answering the phone when I called her.”  Biting her lip again, gnawing on it with her perfect teeth, Bellaniece sighed again.  “Don’t tell her I told you all this, _please_ ,” she said, her voice, taking on a pleading kind of tone.  “She’d be so mad at me if she knew.  I’m only telling you this because . . . Because, as happy as she was back then?  She’s so much happier now, and . . . and I know— _I know_ —it’s because of you.”

Cartham ground his teeth together as Kelly’s voice—Kelly’s words—echoed in his mind.  The look on her face, the absolute misery that delineated her very aura . . . and those words . . .

“ _I . . . I look like Frankenstein . . . Like a weird, patchwork quilt or something.  They said the scars would fade eventually, but . . . Yeah, sure.  Just give it another . . . hundred years, right . . .?  And until then, everyone who sees them thinks I’m some kind of sideshow freak, like I did it to myself or_ . . . ”

And even if that was what she’d thought before, for someone to reinforce this belief of hers in such a cruel way?  Especially if . . . Deliberately cutting off his own thoughts, he quickly slipped the mug onto the table before he crushed it in his hands without meaning to.

“Who is he?” Cartham growled.

Bellaniece let out a deep breath, gave a quick shake of her head, as though she hadn’t heard him at all.  “I . . . I shouldn’t have told you any of that,” she blurted, color rising in her cheeks.  “It’s . . . It’s not your problem, and—”

“What’s this guy’s name?” he demanded, ignoring her claims that she shouldn’t talk more.

She blinked, seemed confused for a few moments.  “His name . . .?”

“Yeah, this little bastard she was dating.  _What’s his goddamn name?_ ”

“It doesn’t matter.  She—”

“It _does_ matter!” Cartham growled.  “If this guy made her feel bad, just because she has a few scars, then I’m going to make sure that he thinks twice about being a jackass to anyone, ever again—if he gets an ‘ever again’—give him some goddamn scars of his own . . .”

She shook her head again, looked like she was about to tell him to stop being ridiculous.  “It’s not important!  What is, is that—” she said, and, as she looked at him, her eyes widened slowly.  “Oh, you . . . You _do_ . . .” Fingers fluttering against her lips as she trailed off, as she continued to stare at him, Bellaniece seemed to believe that she’d just figured it all out.

And the smile that spread over her features was brilliant, intense, and positively luminous.

 

* * *

 

 

Kelly leaned forward to nab one of the take out boxes of plain, white rice before settling back on the sofa once more.  Feet drawn up, she opened the box and dug out a huge bite without looking away from the movie on television.

Sitting on the floor at one end of the coffee table, Cartham said nothing as he picked through the beef and pea pods, and, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw him, fishing out the hunks of meat.

“You’d better not be leaving those peas,” Kelly warned though her gaze hadn’t strayed, even for a moment.

Beside her, Bellaniece giggled and fed Kelly a hunk of chicken from the container she was holding.  She was shockingly good with the chopsticks—not surprising, really, given that Japan was officially her home these days.  Kelly hadn’t even bothered, grabbing one of the plastic sporks that the Chinese restaurant had packed in their bags.

Cartham didn’t argue with her, and she repressed the urge to smile when he grudgingly scooped out a bite, complete with a pea pod, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“You’d think that you just took away his favorite toy,” Bellaniece remarked, nodding in Cartham’s direction.

Kelly glanced over at him, and rolled her eyes as he met her gaze, slowly digging another bite out of the box and making an exaggerated show of getting a pea pod in it, too.  “You’re as bad as she is,” she said, jerking her head toward Bellaniece.

“I can’t help it.  I like meat,” Bellaniece burbled around a mouthful of food.

Kelly snorted and stabbed her fork into the box in Bellaniece’s hands.  “That’s what she said.”

Bellaniece groaned, then giggled.  “Okay, switch,” she commanded, leaning over Kelly to offer Cartham the chicken.

“No, thanks,” he said.  “I don’t share food.”

Kelly shook her head.  “Yes, you do,” she reminded him.  “Well, drinks, anyway.”

Cartham leaned back against the recliner, mostly to keep his food out of Bellaniece’s reach.  “Not anymore,” he told her.  “Besides, the Legacy-of-Cain over there?  She should keep her germs to herself.”

Bellaniece sat back, but her eyes seemed to sparkle even more.  “I’m the Legacy-of— _O-O-Oh_ , I get it!  That’s really clever, Cartham!”

He grunted.

Kelly made a face.  “You know, I got that for me,” she said, gesturing at the box in Cartham’s hand.  “I got you the shrimp.”

“That’s okay,” he told her between bites.  “I’m good.”

Letting out a longsuffering breath, Kelly traded the rice for the box of sweet and sour shrimp along with a crispy, golden crab rangoon.  “I thought you loved shrimp,” she mused, poking around to find the bite she wanted.

Cartham shrugged and leaned over to nab the remote control.  “I’m an equal opportunity meat eater,” he said.  “Gross, is that broccoli?”

Bellaniece shook her head.  “It’s cauliflower,” she told him.  “Broccoli’s green.”

He didn’t look impressed as he clicked the remote to bring up the channel guide.  “And both are really disgusting,” he replied.

 “Oh, wait!  _The Loving Way_ ,” Kelly exclaimed, jabbing her fork in the direction of the television.  “We can rent that!”

Before Cartham could try to talk her out of it, Bellaniece made a face. “It’s not that good,” she said.

“When did you see it?”

Turning her attention back to her food once more, Bellaniece shrugged.  “Ryomaru rented it a couple weeks ago,” she said simply.

“Did Nezumi want to see it?”

Bellaniece shook her head.  “Nope.  She hates chick flicks.  Ryomaru’s the one who loves them.”

“. . . Wow.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Cartham grunted.  “And he’s Sesshoumaru’s top hunter?  Does he wear dresses out on his jobs?”

Bellaniece winked at him, that impish smile of hers, back on her face.  “He could.  I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in his hunting gear or whatever you guys wear, so it’s possible.”

Cartham snorted.  Loudly.  And then, he switched the channel to WWE wrestling, much to the girls’ collective groaning dismay.

“You know this is all fake, right?” Kelly pointed out dryly.

“It’s _scripted_ ,” he corrected.  “It still takes training and skill.”

Bellaniece slowly shook her head.  “Training and skill, and—oh, look, he’s wearing a tutu—a _pink_ tutu.”

“Yeah, it’s apparently your brother-in-law, getting ready to go out on a job,” Cartham shot back.

“He’s such a smartass,” Bellaniece said in an aside to Kelly.  “I really like him.”

Kelly sighed, but said nothing.

“Oh, _eww!_ ” Bellaniece exclaimed when the one that was wearing a bunch of black, studded leather flipped the tutu-wearer off of the top of a turnbuckle.  The movement caused the tutu to rise up, exposing what really could only be called pantaloons . . . “There are pups in that audience!  They don’t need to see that!”

Kelly giggled despite her own distaste.  “He’s _got_ to stuff his pants.”

“Why are you looking at his crotch?” Cartham grumbled.

“You chose the _wrasslin_ ,” Kelly pointed out calmly.  “If they’re going to show off their junk, then it’s not like I can help what I see.”

“Nah, he’s just wearing a really generous cup,” Bellaniece decided.  “I mean, as tight as those bloomers are—”

Cartham sighed.  “ _Tights_ ,” he corrected in a rather exasperated tone, sounding just a little put upon.

“Because calling them tights makes them sound _so_ much manlier,” Bellaniece shot back pleasantly.  “Anyway, if he wasn’t wearing a cup, then you’d definitely see outlines.”

“I get that you’re trying to make me change the channel, but I just sat through _three hours_ of _Titanic_ ,” he pointed out reasonably.

Kelly giggled.  “I’ll never let go, Cartham . . .”

He grunted and rolled his eyes, but said nothing else.

 

* * *

 

 

Cartham blinked, his head, jerking back when the envelope suddenly appeared directly under his nose between his face and the tablet that he’d been reading the news on.  Satisfied that she’d gotten his attention, Bellaniece let the envelope fall onto the tablet as she casually moved past him and sat on the sofa.

Kelly had gone upstairs to take a shower, and he’d thought that Bellaniece had gone to bed, too.  No such luck, it seemed, and he slowly, hesitantly set the tablet aside and picked up the envelope.

Kelly’s name was written on the front, but that was it, and he frowned at Bellaniece, starting to set it aside, but she shrugged and rolled a hand, indicating that she thought he ought to open it anyway.  “It’s not for me,” he said, which Bellaniece already knew.

“Yeah, I know.  It’s an invitation to her work’s Christmas gala in a couple weeks,” she told him.  “Sounds like a lot of fun, really—dancing, dinner, gambling for charity . . .”

“Okay,” he said, still not very comfortable with the idea of reading her mail, regardless of what it was.  “She’s never mentioned it.”

“She says she’s not going,” Bellaniece replied simply.

He was coming to realize fairly quickly that women, in general, really didn’t make any sense.  “Then, why are you showing it to me?” he asked, tapping the edge of the envelope on the arm of the chair.  “Does she know you’re showing it to me?”

“Of course, she doesn’t, and because I think she’d have fun,” Bellaniece said in a tone that indicated that he ought to have realized as much.

“If she said she’s not going, then I’d guess she doesn’t want to,” he pointed out.

Bellaniece rolled her eyes.  “It’s my guess that it’s not that she doesn’t want to go.  My best bet is that she just doesn’t want to mess around with trying to find something to wear and all of that.  It makes perfect sense, if you think about it.”

He frowned at her since he wasn’t really inclined to agree.  “Your logic is entirely lost on me,” he told her.

Again, she sighed, shook her head as though she thought he was just being dumb.  “Are you really trying to say you’ve never noticed?  How everything she owns is designed to cover her entirely from the neck down?  And do you know how hard it would be to find an evening dress or whatever that would do the same thing?”

That earned her a rather dark look.  “That’s stupid,” he insisted, giving his head a little shake.  “She just wears what’s comfortable, and—”

“Does she?” Bellaniece challenged mildly.  “Doesn’t it get really warm here, especially in the summer?  But she doesn’t even own a pair of shorts—not even a short-sleeved tee-shirt.  She’s covering herself up.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed.  “She doesn’t need to.”

Bellaniece sighed, and her tone was almost placating.  “I know that, and you know that, and even Kelly probably realizes it, too, on some level, but her scarring—”

“There’s not a damn thing wrong with her,” he growled, his temper, dangerously close to igniting.  “Not a damn thing, and if you’re her friend—her _best_ friend—then you need to—”

“I never said it was logical,” Bellaniece cut in coldly, narrowing those sapphire eyes in a way that reminded Cartham of her father.  “If you remember what I told you earlier, then you’d know, right?  Those scars are deeper than they look—to _her_ , at least.  To her, they’re deep, and they’re ugly, and that’s all she sees, and isn’t her perception of them more important than anyone else’s?  So, yes, it’s great that you’re standing up for her.  I get it.  But what you see; what _I_ see . . . It pales in comparison to what _she_ sees.”

He shook his head.  What Bellaniece said made perfect sense, even if he hated the idea that it did.  “That’s beside the point, isn’t it?” he finally said, setting the invitation aside and scowling at the tai-youkai’s daughter.  “Listen, if she isn’t comfortable, going to this thing, then—”

“But I’m going to help you,” Bellaniece interrupted.

Oh, why did he feel like he was walking, right into some kind of weird trap . . .? “Help me, what?” he asked against his better judgement.

“I’ll help you find something that will cover her so she won’t be self-conscious, but that’s also guaranteed to make her feel as pretty as she’ll look.”  Biting her lip, she crossed her arms over her chest, seemed to be considering something pretty deeply.  “Unless you don’t want to take her, that is . . . Am I reading you wrong, Cartham?”

“Reading me?”

She nodded slowly, almost methodically.  “You loaned her money to get settled when Daddy was more than willing to do that.  You kept coming around to check on her, even after Daddy stopped asking you to do it.  You moved here—moved her in with you, and you really didn’t have to do that, considering you even bought her a gun and took her to learn how to handle it . . . And I could be reading you entirely wrong, sure.  After all, I just met you, and it’s not like I knew you before to have any real basis of comparison . . .” She trailed off for a moment, seemed to be pondering things.  Then, she shook her head.  “Daddy said that you have fatherly feelings about her, but that’s not quite right, is it?”

“I . . .”

She sighed.  “You don’t have to tell me anything.  I really just want to help her, and if helping you help her is the best way to do it, then so be it.  Because something about the two of you . . . You’ve healed her more than I’ve ever been able to, and I’m all right with that.  Kelly’s my focus here.”

He pondered that.  In truth, he didn’t really know what to say about that, anyway.  His feelings, when it came to Kelly Hendricks . . . Well, he couldn’t explain them, couldn’t put words to it.  Every day, she grew dearer to him, and every day, he could feel the bond between them, growing stronger.   But to put a label on it?  It wasn’t really something he could do, no . . .

“For what it’s worth, if Kelly loves someone, then she loves them completely, flaws and all,” Bellaniece mused quietly.  “If she loves someone, then there’s nothing she won’t do for them.  If she loves someone, then they’ll be one of the luckiest people in the world.”

“Why’s that?” he couldn’t help asking, and yet, dreading her answer, at the same time.

To his surprise, a rather impish smile surfaced on Bellaniece’s pretty face, and she winked at him.  “Because I love anyone she loves,” she replied simply, “and if _I_ love someone, then I’ll absolutely go out of my way to help him.”

Cartham stifled a sigh.

For some reason, Bellaniece’s words sounded more like an omen than an actual promise, didn’t it . . .?

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> **_Reviewers_ **
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_MMorg  
> _** — — —
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_AO3  
> _** TheWonderfulShoe ——— minthegreen ——— cutechick18
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Not sure I want her help_ …
> 
>  


	16. Stardust

Cartham stepped inside the apartment, carefully maneuvering the pale green garment bag through the door without accidentally crumpling it.  He could tell from the feel of the air inside that Kelly wasn’t yet home from work, and that, he figured, was all right.  Hanging the bag from one of the hooks near the door, he kicked the door closed as he pulled off his jacket then sat on the nearest chair to pull off his boots.  To be honest, he still wasn’t entirely sure if ambushing Kelly was a good idea, but Bellaniece had insisted that Kelly would like it—at least, once she got over the initial surprise of it.

She still hadn’t mentioned the gala, and, while Bellaniece’s words had made sense, there was still just the smallest part of him that really wasn’t entirely sure that he bought into it.  What if she really wasn’t interested in attending it, after all?  She’d think that he was overstepping, wouldn’t she?

Frowning as he strode over to grab the small remote that controlled the Christmas tree lights, he cycled through the settings till the lights glowed softly but remained lit.  Kelly liked to make them flash, but he couldn’t say he was as keen on that.  Of course, it was the first year ever that he’d even bothered to buy a tree.  It was kind of pointless, he’d always thought, when he lived alone and had no real family to speak of.  He didn’t hate the holidays.  He supposed it was more of an apathy regarding them.  To be honest, he couldn’t remember having ever even bought a Christmas present before, but he had this year.  A few of them, actually, and they were wrapped, courtesy of the stores where he’d bought the things, and were waiting in his closet for the holiday that was still a couple weeks away.

Funny how it hadn’t even occurred to him, not to buy a tree for her.  Funny, too, how shopping for her presents had seemed like the most natural thing in the world . . .

She was the one, however, who had wrapped the front doors in mylar paper, even the huge dock doors, as giant presents, complete with big, red velvet ribbons.

‘ _She didn’t do it alone.  You watched her struggle for all of a minute, giggling to yourself like a little girl, and then, you helped her._ ’

Cartham snorted to himself.  ‘ _I don’t giggle._ ’

‘ _You did that day, tough guy._ ’

He didn’t reply as he headed over to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.

He had a bit of time before he needed to hit the shower, to change into the suit that he’d bought, and Kelly ought to be home any minute.

The biggest question in his head was just what she’d think of what could easily be perceived as a level of high-handedness on his part.  After all, she hadn’t mentioned the gala to him, even in passing, and a portion of his brain still argued that she really just didn’t want to go at all.  He wasn’t sure why Bellaniece was so positive that the only reason she held back was due to the difficulties in finding something suitable to wear.  In his mind, that just didn’t seem to match up, though, and he’d be lying if he tried to pretend that he wasn’t more than a little worried that she wasn’t going to end up, pissed as all hell at him for taking it upon himself to arrange things.

Bellaniece had wasted no time in discussing the clothing issue with Gin, it seemed, but she had the idea to give a designer acquaintance of hers a call.  Apparently, she’d met the woman at one of the Zelig Foundation fundraisers, and she was more than happy to do a favor for Gin, though whether it was for Gin herself or maybe to ingratiate herself and her mate to the tai-youkai, Cartham didn’t know.  It didn’t really matter, anyway, but Cartham had just picked it up from a small shop that was co-owned by the woman and her mate.  Calla Henning—the designer—had even flown in to deliver the dress personally, and when Cartham had asked how much he owed her, she’d waved him off with a good-natured smile, even though he had wanted to compensate her for her efforts.

He actually had no idea, just what it looked like.  It had been shipped directly to the shop, and when he’d stopped in to pick it up, it was already packed into the garment bag along with everything else she’d need, whatever that meant.  Shoes, he’d guessed, since he’d felt them, but the rest of it?  He couldn’t say he was well versed enough in women’s clothing to have any real idea at all.

He was leaning on his forearm, lifting a steaming cup of coffee to his lips, when the door opened, and Kelly stepped inside.  Carrying a couple brown paper shopping bags, she shot him a quick smile, transferring the raffia handles to one hand as she leaned against the door to close it as she kicked off her shoes and scooted them out of the way with a pointed toe.  “Hey,” she greeted, dropping her purse on the table.  “I saw that the contractor masked off the dimensions of the new rooms.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he agreed, blinking a few since it took him a moment to make sense of her words.  The contractor had been over earlier with a couple of his guys to mark out the additions on the first floor, but Cartham had been in such a hurry to go pick up the outfit that he hadn’t really gotten a chance to look at the contractor’s work too closely.  He’d do that tomorrow and give the guy a call back to let him know what he thought.

“What’s this?”

Setting his mug down so that he could pour a cup for Kelly, he grunted.  “It’s for you.  For the gala tonight.”

“The . . . gala,” she said quietly, almost under her breath.  “Oh . . . How did you know about that?”

He shrugged and held out her cup of coffee.  “Belle told me about it,” he replied.  “Hey, if you don’t want to go, it’s cool.  I just thought maybe you might.  I mean, it’s for your work, right?”

She shuffled toward him and took the cup he offered, but her expression wasn’t exactly easy to read.  Well, that wasn’t completely true.  She looked thoughtful, sure, but he wasn’t sure just what it was that she was thinking . . . “Belle asked Gin, and she had a friend who offered to design something for you,” he went on, careful to keep his tone as casual as he could.  “If you want to go, then I’ll go get changed.  If you don’t?  No big deal.”

She didn’t answer him.  Instead, she pulled out her phone and dialed a number, but Cartham figured he knew who she was calling.  “Hey, Belle,” she said when her friend answered her phone.  “What did you do?”

Cartham drained his mug and refilled it while Kelly stomped off, phone to her ear.  Even so, she didn’t seem angry, really, but she did veer over to pull the garment bag off the hook before heading for the stairs.

He wasn’t entirely sure, just what he was supposed to do.  His own phone chimed, and he frowned as he pulled it out of his pocket and opened the text from Bellaniece.

‘ _She’s going to look at it, and I’m sure she’ll love it, so go ahead and get changed,_ ’ she said.

Cartham wasn't as sure as Bellaniece seemed to be, but he sighed and followed Kelly upstairs.  She was already closed in her room, and he had no idea, just what to make of that.  ‘ _Yeah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound_ ,’ he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t done anything particularly taxing, but he had gone to the shooting range early in the morning, and he didn’t mind the lingering scent of gunpowder, however, Kelly might, especially for something that seemed to be pretty fancy.  Even so, he still headed for the bathroom adjacent to his room, stripping off his clothes as he did so, letting them fall on the floor in a careless disarray, figuring that he’d get them later.

The gurgle of the water pipes echoed in a nondescript kind of way as the water streamed from the showerhead and down the drain, gurgling almost melodically as it filtered down the pipes when he stepped into the still-cold flow.  He’d never much cared, what temperature the water actually was, though he had to admit that he preferred cooler to warmer.

It didn’t take long to finish up his business, mostly because, given the temperature of the water, he had a tendency to hurry unless he was soaking injuries, anyway.  Of course, when that was the case, he did tend to let the water warm a little, too.  Either way, he was clean by the time he shut off the tap and gave himself a brisk little shake to rid himself of excess water.

Drying himself off with a thick and soft dark blue towel—one that Kelly had selected for his bathroom, saying that the color was very masculine—he used the same towel to drape over his head, to scrub vigorously at his wet hair, as he stepped back into his room once more.

The suit he’d bought was hung over the top edge of the closet’s slightly open accordion door.  Though the invitation had indicted that the occasion called for formal dress, he’d opted out of the traditional tuxedo and had chosen a very nice suit of rich black, wool cashmere, instead.  He’d gotten it fitted, which was a process he hadn’t really enjoyed, by a designer named Phillipe Estes, which really meant nothing at all to Cartham but seemed to be a pretty big deal, according to the sales clerks.  He couldn’t really complain, though, given that he liked the fit well enough—better than the others he’d tried on, he figured, since it lent him just a little more mobility than any of the others had.

He dropped the damp towel on the floor before tugging open a drawer to grab a pair of boxers and some black dress socks.  The only thing he wasn’t too keen on, really, was the idea that he had to wear a pair of shoes that kind of felt a little too lightweight, given that he was used to wearing heavy boots.  He’d compromised by picking out a pair of dress boots that only reached his ankles, but it was enough to hide a pair of small, youkai daggers that were specially treated so that they would not ever set off any kind of security sensor since he figured that packing his gun was out.  Still, the need to carry something was a little too ingrained in him after centuries spent, always being armed, but there was literally no way he’d be comfortable if he didn’t have any kind of weapon on him at all . . .

After a moment of deliberation, he opted to forego an undershirt, and he carefully pulled the pitch-black silk shirt off the hanger.  The sales clerk had kept trying to steer him toward a lighter shirt, also one with a tabbed collar that would accommodate a tie, but Cartham had opted instead to go with one with a modified banded collar with a longer tab of fabric that fastened off to the side.  He had gotten an emerald and silver button cover for it along with a matching pair of cufflinks—ones that just matched Kelly’s eyes.

The outfit on a whole?  He had to allow, as he frowned at his reflection in the full-length mirror, attached to the back of the door, he didn’t look too bad.  Granted, he didn’t really look like himself, but he supposed that he’d have to do.

‘ _Maybe, but you should probably do something with your hair._ ’

He sighed to himself since his normally unruly hair looked a little more wild than normal since he’d only toweled it dry.  Grabbing the brush off the dresser, he made a face.  There wasn’t much he could do with it, he supposed.  Since his hair only brushed the top of his shoulders, it wasn’t nearly long enough to club back, and in the end, he called it good, dropping the brush once more before finally sinking on the edge of the bed to pull on the shoes—and to stash his daggers.

By the time he was finished, it was nearly six, which meant that they’d have to leave soon if they were going to arrive when the gala started.  He still hadn’t heard a thing from Kelly, though, and he headed for the door, only to stop, and, on impulse, he pulled open his closet and grabbed a black velvet jeweler’s box off the top shelf—a gift he’d bought for Kelly, but maybe it didn’t need to wait till Christmas . . .

Then he strode out of his room and down the stairs, slipping his wallet into his pocket as he took the steps, two at a time.

He’d just finished, texting to order a cab when Kelly’s youki brushed over his—a tentative, almost nervous kind of sensation, and he turned on his heel, only to stop short, eyes flaring slightly when he caught sight of her.

She stood, just inside the living room, her hands clenched before herself, biting her deep red, bottom lip, hair, drawn up softly on the sides, spilling down around her in a mass of slightly curling, shining light brown locks, even as the fine wisps of hair fell to frame her face, giving her an even more delicate visage, but her dress . . .

It was nothing more than an artful assembly of off-white lace, slightly darker than a cream color, that hugged her figure like a second skin.  The lacing, lying thicker over her neck down to around mid-thigh, where the pattern of the lace grew more delicate, more ethereal, down the long sleeves that flared out from her elbows down to her wrists, and the skirt echoed the same shaping, ending just above her ankles, even as the back of it dipped down to brush the floor, flowed around her with even the vaguest of movements as she shifted her weight from one of her simple black velvet, three-inch heeled pumps to the other.  Underneath the dress, though, was a simple, not quite sheer body stocking with little sparkles of iridescent thread shod through it that complimented the dress absolutely perfectly.  As she stood, as she waited for Cartham to say something, he could feel her nerves, and yet, there was something else underneath it all, something he could feel.  She . . . She felt . . . She felt beautiful, didn’t she?  She felt those things that maybe she hadn’t for so very long, if she ever had before.

They were literally designed to be worn as one—the same dress—not something created, just to help her to cover what she perceived to be her own imperfections, he realized, and something about that . . . It was a humbling feeling, wasn’t it?  The gratitude that he felt toward Calla Henning for so carefully creating such a thing—something that was able to give Kelly back a sense of normalcy that she so desperately needed—the understanding that Bellaniece had for her friend . . .

He had to clear his throat before he could speak.  “You . . . Uh, _wow_ ,” he said, realizing on some level that he sounded kind of stupid.

Her cheeks pinked, but her emerald eyes sparkled.  “Thank you . . . You look great . . .”

He smiled, but something about it felt almost . . . nervous?  And again, he cleared his throat when he glanced down and realized that he was still holding his phone in one hand and the jewelry box in the other.  After hastily dropping the phone into his pocket, he held out the box.  “Here,” he said when she shot him a questioning kind of glance.  “Call it an early Christmas present.”

She stared at him for another long moment before she hesitantly reached for it and took it from him.  “Oh,” she breathed, popping open the lid to reveal a pair of drop emerald and silver earrings.  “They’re beautiful,” she told him, setting the box on a table so that she could pull the earrings out of it.  “Thank you!”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, content to watch her as she carefully put the earrings on.  “You’re welcome,” he told her, smiling gently as she worked the clasps.  “You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh . . . my . . . _God_ . . . Who is _that?_ ”

Blinking as she glanced up at Lyza, who was staring past Kelly at someone behind them.  Turning to look, she wasn’t surprised at all when she spotted Cartham, who was buying some credits for the night’s festivities and was being chatted up by Kelly’s boss at the moment.  She also noticed that a number of other women were also busy, giving the man in question very objectionable attention, and she smothered a snort.  “That’s Cartham,” she said, hoping that she sounded more nonchalant than she felt.  “He’s my . . .” Trailing off for a moment, she cleared her throat.  “My roommate.”

“Your . . .?  Just your roommate?” Lyza pressed, a hint of amusement in her tone.  “Don’t say that too loud around here.  Even the girls from the hotel manager’s office is giving your roommate the eye, and everyone says that they’re the snootiest girls, anywhere . . . He’s beautiful . . .”

The snort she was trying to hold back slipped out since she had, indeed, noticed that the other women were far too interested in Cartham, and didn’t that just figure?  “Where’s Miles?” she asked, prodding her friend with a not-so-subtle reminder that she was very engaged.

Lyza waved a hand and giggled.  “Oh, he’s around,” she replied airily, but she did finally look back at Kelly once more.  “That dress is gorgeous!”

Satisfied that she’d made her point, Kelly smiled just a little.  Lyza’s compliment seemed genuine, even if it had felt slightly off-handed, like she’d finally deigned to notice what Kelly was wearing after finally being able to drag her attention off of Cartham, anyway . . . “Thanks.  You look great, too.”

Lyza wrinkled her nose and shook her head, but she did laugh.  “This is the same dress I wore last year,” she murmured in a hushed voice.  “I mean, I’ve only worn it once before, so what was the point of buying something else, right?”

Kelly nodded since she knew that Lyza used to work at the hotel until the casino had opened up, and they had hosted the same kind of gala last year, as well, at a nearby venue.

“Oh, my God!  Who is that?” she heard, though the woman—Kelly thought that she might work up in the offices, but she wasn't sure—had obviously not meant for her to do so since she was talking in a hushed whisper to her friend, but Kelly’s youkai-hearing hadn’t allowed her to miss it, at all.

“I don’t know, but he’d delicious, isn’t he?”

They giggled.  “Who’s he here with?”

The second woman heaved a little sigh.  “Carey told me that she thinks he came with the cashier manager—Kelly, isn’t it?”

“Who’s that?”

Another indulgent giggle.  “Oh, you know, that really quiet girl?  Not quite brown hair, not quite blonde?  Really serious all the time?  I seriously hope that her regular personality isn’t as dull as her work one is . . .” The two laughed, and the very sound of it made Kelly bristle.  “Um, oh, she’s right over there . . .”

Grinding her teeth together when she felt the women’s sudden attention, it was all she could do to keep her back straight, even as the slight smile on her face felt more and more stilted and wooden . . . She didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to know just how those women judged her, especially when they didn’t even know her.  That old and too familiar sense that she simply wasn’t good enough rose up, despite her desire not to allow it.  Hadn’t she outgrown that back in school?  Hadn’t she already heard the same kinds of things from the girls in the popular crowds?  As they wondered why a girl like Bellaniece Zelig hung out with her or they’d put her down, saying that she was only being friends with Bellaniece in the hopes that she could maybe land some of Bellaniece’s cast offs, even while they snipped and sniggered and took their shots at Bellaniece, too, and these women . . .

They were just like them, weren’t they?  The ones that Kelly had convinced herself didn’t matter a damn bit, and yet . . .

And yet, she still couldn’t quite shake it off, as much as she wanted to.  Somehow, just the demeanor of these women was far more familiar than it ought to be, and, glancing around in a slow, surreptitious kind of way, she saw those same kinds of looks, those same sorts of peeks—ones that were directed at her, full of those same kinds of questions, of judgements, of assessments, or worse—those longing sorts of expressions as they stared so brazenly and blatantly at the hunter . . . 

“Hey, ladies . . . Here,” Cartham said as he slipped up beside her and held out the casino card.  “Let me know if you want more added to it later.  I mean, it’s for a good cause, right?”

Kelly took the card and forced a smile, just for him as she glanced up at him, but the expression felt tight, stilted, given that she could feel so many eyes on him and, by proximity, on her, too, and that was enough to set her almost entirely on edge.  In the corners of her mind, she could hear the sneers, the snide comments, even if they were little more than a dull roar in her head, and even if they weren’t actually there or not.  Maybe.  “Oh, Cartham, this is Lyza Carr, my friend.  Lyza, this is Cartham.”

Lyza nodded and shot Kelly a knowing glance as she shook Cartham’s hand.  “Right, right, your roommate.  Nice to meet you, Cartham.  That’s an unusual first name, isn’t it?”

“It’s not,” he remarked simply.  “Just what everyone calls me.  That’s all.”

“I see,” Lyza said, though she didn’t really look like she understood it.  “Oh, excuse me,” she apologized, gesturing across the room where Miles had beckoned her over.  He was deep in conversation with someone Kelly didn’t recognize, but he did spare a moment to nod at her in a friendly way.

“So, you want to try out the slot machines or something?” Cartham asked, apparently oblivious to the other women in the room who were so blatantly staring at him.

Kelly frowned, noting not for the first time, just how well Cartham’s suit fit him.  When she’d first seen him, waiting for her in the living room, she’d been dumbstruck for a few seconds, as though she couldn’t quite reckon the man she saw with the one she thought that she knew.  However much that suit had cost, it was money well spent, she surmised, but it had been just a little too much of a stretch to hope that other women wouldn’t notice him, too, she figured.

Tucking a long, errant strand of hair behind her ear, Kelly bit her lip, debating whether or not she ought to excuse herself to check her hair in the ladies’ room.  Considering it was her idea to ride the motorcycle, though, she figured she only had herself to blame if her hair was in complete disarray, but when they’d stepped outside, she’d suddenly thought that she’d rather arrive to the gala on the bike than in a cab, after all, and Cartham hadn’t seemed to mind, even if he was wearing what had to be a very expensive suit . . .

From the moment they’d arrived not even an hour ago, though, she’d been faced with the absolute gall of a lot of the women in attendance who had no shame when it came to their unabashed gawking at the man she’d arrived with.

She sighed.  Then again, just what had she been thinking, anyway?

After seeing the dress that Bellaniece had arranged for her, she’d forgotten for a moment that she just didn’t make a good heroine, had never been the beauty, the girl that men sought out.  Putting on a fancy dress certainly wouldn’t change any of that, and the truth of it was, Bellaniece had admitted that she’d told him all about the gala, and just what was he supposed to do when she’d all but bullied him into it, knowing Bellaniece?  She knew her friend well enough to understand on some level that Bellaniece probably hadn’t given Cartham a chance to say no, even if he didn’t want to go, and worse?  Well, worse was the idea that the only reason—the only reason—he’d agreed was because he’d felt sorry for her.

“ _Hey, if you don’t want to go, it’s cool.  I just thought maybe you might.  I mean, it’s for your work, right?_ ”

He’d said it more than once, hadn’t he?  If she didn’t want to go . . . but maybe what he meant was . . .

“ _I don’t really want to go, but if you want to, then I’ll humor you_ . . .”

Sparing him a sidelong glance, she stifled a sigh, not missing the way he kept tugging at his cuffs, and if he’d straightened his collar once, he’d done so a number of times.  The way that his eyes kept darting back and forth . . . Well, she’d noticed that, too, not to mention the very thin little smile that he refused to relinquish as he nodded now and again at people—mostly women—who caught his attention . . .

If she were smart, she’d just ask him to take her home, she figured.  He didn’t seem to be having any more fun than she was, so maybe he wouldn’t mind.  Then again, what if she was the reason he wasn’t having a good time?  Did he think that, because he’d arrived with her, that she expected him to stay by her side all night?

But before she could ponder that too long, Peter Watkins, the manager of the casino, tapped on his champagne glass to draw everyone’s attention.  “Good evening, and welcome to our Christmas gala!  If you’d all be so kind, please follow me into the dining hall for a dinner and a brief presentation!”

Without a word, Cartham reached out, slipped an arm around her waist and fell in line with the crowd that was moving to follow the general manager, and Kelly stifled a sigh.  ‘ _After dinner_ ,’ she supposed.  Maybe then, she could slip out without anyone realizing . . .

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _If I catch one more guy, leering at her, I swear to God, I’m going to rip someone, limb from fucking limb . . ._ ’

Cartham’s youkai-voice heaved a longsuffering sigh.  ‘ _What do you expect?  She’s gorgeous, stupid.  Of course, they’re going to be staring.  But she’s not going home with any of them, now is she?  So, control your temper and just behave yourself or Zelig’ll be issuing a hunt for you._ ’

‘ _Yeah, well, most of those bastards are here with women of their own.  They can damn well stop looking at her, or—_ ’

‘ _Oh, for the love of—You know, why don’t you just go ahead and piss on her?  Mark her as your territory, right?  It’d be a far sight easier than glaring at every damn man in the room, don’t you think?  And you know what?  Do you think Kelly hasn’t noticed?  Because I’m pretty sure she has._ ’

‘ _I’m not going to—That’s not even—Shut up!_ ’

Beside him at the table, Kelly set aside her fork and cleared her throat.  “If, umm . . . If you want, you don’t . . . don’t have to sit here with me,” she said in such a low tone that he had to lean toward her to hear her.

His gaze shot to her face, only to narrow when he saw her, cheeks a very becoming shade of pink, as she stared down at her barely touched plate of food.  “What?” he snapped, more surprised by what she’d said than anything else.

She instantly started gnawing on her bottom lip, and still, she refused to look up at him.  “There are a lot of . . . of single women here,” she went on, her voice, dipping even lower in register.  “They all think you look nice—I-I mean, you do—look nice, that is . . .”

“I really don’t care what anyone else thinks,” he growled, his frangible hold on his temper, barely hanging on.  “What the hell are you babbling about?”

She grimaced.  He could see it in the sudden tightness around her eyes, even if he still couldn’t rightfully see her face.  Suddenly, though, she stood so abruptly that her chair slid back a few inches with an audible screech.  “You know, I . . . I have a headache,” she blurted, forcing a smile as she finally glanced up at him, but the darkness in her eyes that lay just below the entirely fake expression was far easier to discern.  “I’m just . . . Just going to go to the ladies’ room . . .”

He stood up, too, but he could only frown as he watched her as she hurried out of the dining hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
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> _** monsterkittie ——— minthegreen ——— cutechick18 ——— Elizabeth
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _What just happened_ …?


	17. Unsettled

_Scowling as he double checked his gear as he stuffed it into his bag, Cartham didn’t even glance up when the soft but sharp throat-clearing sounded behind him_.

“ _I just wanted to ask if you had and preferences about dinner?_ ”

“ _I won’t be here for it,” he announced curtly and without even glancing in Kelly’s direction_.

 _She was silent for a long moment, just watching as he shoved the last of his gear into the bag and yanked the zipper closed.  “You’re leaving_.”

“ _Zelig called,” he explained, reaching for the slim-file and the nondescript cell phone.  “Don’t know how long it’ll take_.”

 _She sighed softly.  “I see_ . . .”

 _Grimacing as he turned his head to the side, Cartham frowned at her.  “Listen, I don’t have much time, but . . . about last night.  I_ —”

“ _Do you really have time to waste, talking about that?” she challenged, but something about her voice—the slight quiver that was barely discernable, the fleeting quivering of her nostrils_ . . .

 _Unfortunately, she was right, and he knew it.  “We’ll talk about it when I get home_.”

 _She didn’t respond to that, but she did push herself away from the door frame and stepped back into the hall_.

 _He hitched the bag over his shoulder, careful to avoid the gun, strapped to his side.  Pausing before pushing past her, he scanned her face, searching for any real insight into her thoughts, but she kept them all carefully hidden from him—just as she had ever since that fiasco of a gala just the night before.  “Keep the doors locked while I’m gone,” he warned.  “I can’t call or text you from this phone, either, so, uh, don’t worry about me_.”

Shaking off the memory as he sat in the dark and dingy half-light in the back of the hole of a bar in the backwater town of Haskill, Arizona, Cartham sipped the flat and tepid beer that he’d been nursing for the better part of two hours as he’d sat and waited, hoping against hope that tonight was the night that the bastard of a newt-youkai would finally show his face.

Over a week since he’d left on this particular hunt, and he was growing impatient, almost antsy, but the information he’d been given said that Chad Eires, the newt, frequented this particular bar regularly, that it would be the best place to locate the deviant and to track him from there.  Wanted for a number carjackings near Chicago a few years ago where he’d left all of his targets dead, including a family of three—a mother and her two young children—he was only identified when a youkai who had nearly fallen prey to the bastard had come forward, saying that Eires got nervous when he realized that his would-be victim was also youkai.  There were other rumors swirling around Eires, but none of them had been substantiated.  However, the harm he’d caused to the carjacking victims was more than enough for the hunt to be issued.

‘ _Damn it._ ’

His youkai-voice grunted.  ‘ _Admit it.  You’re really just mad because Kelly’s been acting so weird, and you can’t figure out why._ ’

Cartham downed a bigger swig of the stale beer.  Yeah, he had to admit, there was that, too.

It made no sense, did it?  She’d been acting so distant, ever since the gala, and damned if he had any idea, why that was.  Kelly, for her part, refused to talk about it, refused to even acknowledge that something had changed.  She was careful.  She was polite.

And she was so very far away that he just couldn’t stand it.

‘ _Yeah, well, stop dwelling on that and pay attention to why you’re here, will you?_ ’ his youkai-voice grouched.  ‘ _You know better than to let yourself be distracted by anything when you’re out here like this._ ’

‘ _You’re the one who brought her up,_ ’ he growled, unconsciously narrowing his gaze as he slowly glanced around.

‘ _Don’t be dumb.  You were already thinking about her.  That’s all you do lately: think about Kelly—wonder what she’s doing, what she’s thinking—wondering what you could possibly do to make her think more about you . . ._ ’

Running a hand through his hair, noting absently that it could do with a good washing, Cartham smothered the urge to sigh.  True to form, he tended to not bother with simple things like showering or messing with his hair before he finished a job, mostly because his scent was slightly different if he didn’t—and he didn’t much care, given that time was money.  That this hunt was taking longer than most?  Well, he was all right with that, for now, anyway . . .

More than once, he’d almost given into the urge to call her, just to make sure she was all right, but he simply couldn’t, given that he was using a prepaid phone, and, if he lost it, if the wrong person found it, the last thing he wanted was for anyone else to get their hands on Kelly’s number . . .

She never had come back to the table that night at the gala.  After waiting for a decent amount of time, he’d gone looking for her, only to finally find her, sitting in a quiet corner of the casino, wasting all the credits he’d bought for her on a slot machine, but the look on her face . . . The glow of the spinning reels cast an eerie kind of light, flashes of colors that scrolled much too fast for any one to really settle, but the sadness in her eyes was something that had completely disarmed him, nudging aside the acute irritation that she hadn’t bothered to return, in the first place.

Still, when he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d refused to say.  In the end, she’d stood up, had brushed past him.  He’d chased after her, only to be caught by some random woman, hell-bent on making small talk, and by the time he’d shaken her off, Kelly was gone.

He couldn’t have gotten home too much after she had—she’d caught a cab, the doorman had told him—but she’d locked herself in her room for the rest of the night, and in the morning, she’d seemed fine: aloof and even a little stand-offish, but fine . . .

Or . . .

“I hear you’re looking for me.”

Blinking as he jerked himself out of his thoughts, Cartham scowled up at the man he hadn’t even sensed approaching.  Youkai, most definitely—newt-youkai—strange orange eyes, seeming to glow in the darkness, nearly obscured by a length of unkempt, shaggy black hair.

“Chad Eires, I take it?” Cartham asked rather dryly, giving no indication outwardly of his own chagrin at having been caught off-guard.

“Chad would be my brother,” the newt replied coolly.  “ _Chris_ Eires—that’d be me.”

Before Cartham could respond to that, though, the slight glint of something caught his eye, little more than a flicker in the dusty light, but the unmistakable sound of the gun, being cocked . . . He certainly did not miss that.

“Why don’t you come with me where we can talk this over . . . hunter?” the newt-youkai muttered, just barely audible above the overall din of the bar.  “Besides, I’m sure Chad would _love_ to meet you.”

Cartham stared at him for a long moment, but he slowly stood and straightened his back, walking past the youkai who held the gun, barely hidden under the open edge of his jacket.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Slapping her hand against the round green button, Kelly watched without really seeing as the slot machine spun the reels on the monitor.  As far as she could tell, she’d already lost a good fifty bucks since she’d come out here after hiding in the bathroom for a good twenty minutes.  A part of her had half-expected Cartham to follow her.  He didn’t, of course, which was probably for the best, but when she’d gone back to the dining hall, she’d spotted him, still sitting at their table—and with a very busty blonde in her vacated chair, leaning in, listening intently to whatever he was saying_.

 _That was when Kelly had backed out of the room and had fled to the slot machine farthest away in the darkest corner of the casino_.

“Stop it,” she muttered to herself, pushing back the memory and flopping over onto her side as the quiet of the night seemed to press in on her.  Stubbornly closing her eyes, she tried to will herself to sleep while knowing in the back of her mind that it really wouldn’t be happening.

She hadn’t been able to sleep, not since the day he’d left on his latest job, anyway, and even before that, the sleep she was able to get since the gala was fitful, at best, and the question lingered in the back of her mind—the one that she was loathe to answer.

Just what did she think she was doing?

How easy was it, allowing herself to think, even for a moment, that maybe she belonged with him?  Even if he only offered her his friendship, and she’d thought that it was enough, but . . . But it wasn’t, was it?  It couldn’t be because somewhere in the back of her mind . . .

Was she doing herself more harm than good, staying here with him?

She realized that she wanted something more, something he didn’t want, and that knowledge was painful.  That longing, those sharp, bitter edges of a wish that was never voiced . . . It didn’t make it any less real, and it didn’t make it any less hurtful—the ache of knowing that it really wasn’t more than a feeling that would never be returned to her . . .

And, thinking back over the years of her life, how often had she known the same feeling, even if it was far more focused, far more poignant now than it ever had been before?  A lifetime of girlish and childish crushes, and not one of them had ever amounted to anything.  Back then, she remembered, wondering why it was that she was always the one who was found to be lacking?  Back then, she’d thought that her heartbreak was real, and she’d felt it so acutely, that nothing could ever be worse than what she’d felt.  But now, in this . . .?

And she knew, too, that being here was the worst thing in the world for her, but the idea of being alone again?  Why did that feel so much more frightening?

For a fleeting moment, she’d nearly forgotten, had almost thought, hadn’t she?  Seeing the surprise on his features, the way those violet eyes had suddenly darkened, deepened, glowed in honest appreciation, as he’d stared at her when she’d stepped into the living room, and for that crazy, wild second, she’d almost dared to believe . . .

‘ _I’m so stupid . . . Why would a man like Cartham even think about a silly little girl like me?  Sure, I can try to hide it all under all the layers of clothing I can, but what good does that do, anyway?  None, really . . . and I see in the mirror, every time I dare to look?  I look like a living patchwork quilt, and there is no beauty in it . . . There’s no nobility, no honor . . . It’s not like I was burned, trying to do something good or right.  Oh, no . . . Just my own idiotic choices, and . . ._ ’

‘ _And maybe Cartham can see through all that . . . Maybe he sees beyond what might be on a superficial level.  Have you thought about that?  Or will you keep selling him short because it’s easier, isn’t it?  Easier to tell yourself all these ugly things than it is to dare to hope that maybe—_ ’

‘ _Maybe he won’t be like that?  That he won’t see me, that he won’t be completely horrified by the skin bag that isn’t even mine?  I’m not stupid—well, not anymore.  I know what’s there, and I know how to looks, and a man like Cartham—_ ’

‘ _If that’s really what you think, Kelly, then maybe you should.  Pack it all up, take off now, while he’s not here to try to stop you. Disappear again—Europe or Africa . . . even Australia.  Run as far as you possibly can and keep running, every day for the rest of your life because you have to understand that this time—_ this time _—you’re not running away from the claustrophobia of a life that you found to be too conspicuous. This time, you’ll be running away from yourself, and when he finds you because you know he will, then run again and again and again and again._ ’

Squeezing her eyes closed against the raw truth in her youkai-voice’s prophetic words, she smashed her face, deeper into her pillow and uttered the tiniest growl—a pitiful sound that was caught somewhere between lament and anger, but held not enough of either emotion for it to ring true.  He’d find her.  Of course, he would—and maybe a part of her was relying upon that—but still . . . Because Cain would send him again, wouldn’t he?  Cain would feel that familiar sense of responsibility that had very little to do with love or caring and everything to do with the need to pacify his own daughter’s anxiety . . .

But even as that thought sparked to life, the instant wash of shame that crashed over her wrung a groan from her, from somewhere deep down, because she knew, didn’t she?  She knew damn well that Cain Zelig, for whatever reason, really did love her—or at least, he loved the little girl he’d watched grow up with his daughter, and that ought to be enough.  Even then, it hurt, didn’t it?  She had no idea, why, but it did.

Letting out a deep breath, Kelly suddenly sat up, scowled at the clock on the nightstand.  Almost two in the morning, and yet, sleep was so far away.  It was too silent, too still, and far too lonely.  Drawing up her knees, wrapping her arms around them, she buried her face against them and sighed because the deeper the chasm in her heart opened up, the harder it was for the tears to fall.

 

* * *

 

 

‘ _Well, you’ve certainly done it this time, haven’t you?  Hope you have some idea, how to get out of this because I don’t have even one.  Wake up, will you?  Wake up!_ ’

Stifling the instant urge to groan as white-hot pain overrode the blackened void where he’d escaped not long after being forced into the building.  Cartham forced his eyes open, tried to ignore the god-awful pain, radiating from the gun shot wound in his right shoulder.  Blinking in an effort to shake off the haze that still threatened to engulf his mind, it took him a few precious moments to remember just what had happened.

Escorted out of the bar and forced into an old, rumbling gray truck that might have once been black, he’d had no choice, given the situation, than to cooperate as he drove out of the town and into the night with a gun trained on him the whole time, directed by the newt-youkai, to an old white and rusty pole barn.  Once inside, the bastard had pulled the trigger, but Cartham had managed to react in time to keep from taking the shot dead-center in his chest.  It was the excruciating pain, however, that had made him black out . . . He really had no idea, just how long he’d been unconscious, but he could tell, given the fuzziness that he couldn’t shake off, the weakness of his body that seemed to intensify with every passing moment, that the loss of blood thus far had to be fairly significant . . .

Unable to stifle a sharp groan when he tried to move his arms, only to be rewarded by a flash of pain around both wrists that ricocheted up his arms and straight to his brain, he gave his head a quick shake, reminding himself to breathe deep before the overwhelming urge to pass out again gained a more solid hold.  Shackled to the arms of a very thick metal chair with his own anti-youkai handcuffs?  He squeezed his eyes closed and then forced them open wide.  Yep, both of his pairs of handcuffs.  That just figured . . .

His gun was removed as were the daggers he kept in his boots.  All of his weapons were gone—all but one of them, he thought with a grim and unamused smile that was little more than a curling of the lips.  Even so . . .

Gritting his teeth since he knew that another jolt was about to hit him hard, he mustered his strength and jerked his body from side to side.  The chair didn’t budge, and he couldn’t help the low moan that slipped out of him as he slumped back and tried to fight off the effects of the restraints once more.  Somewhere, as though at a distance, he could faintly hear the words of his youkai-voice, but it was dulled and dim, lacking the actual intonation of words, but the pain was a curious thing.  It didn’t start on the outside of his skin and work its way in; it rattled through the very core of him—a shocking, violent sensation that shot forth in such a way that it could not be described as true pain as much as it felt like a complete and utter violation of the very fabric of his being, and the actual pain was somehow secondary, radiating out from that indefinable center of him, rifling straight through him, only to rebound, over and over and over in the space of an instant, of a breath, of a whisper of air  “Bolted to the floor,” he muttered, his speech, slurred as he once again willed away the throbbing pain in his shoulder, the intense ache of his youki.

‘ _We’ve got to get out of here, Cartham,_ ’ his youkai-voice insisted, the tone, the timbre, taking on an unmistakably anxious lilt, sounding incredibly weak, even in the confines of his own head, but it seemed determined to ignore the partial purification, which was somehow admirable—and entirely foolish, too.  ‘ _The slug’s still in your shoulder.  That’s why . . ._ ’

He grunted.  That’s why it still hurt so damn bad, he figured.  That’s why he could still feel blood, soaking into his shirt, could smell it, so thick and heavy around himself that it blocked out almost everything else . . .

He was in a small room.  Maybe it had been some kind of store room at some point.  There were a few strange bits and pieces over in one of the corners—the broken-off handle of something—a broom or some kind of gardening instrument, maybe—and it was dark—a murky kind of dullness that made it impossible to tell, just what time of day it might be.  He had no way of knowing if he’d been unconscious for a few minutes or a few hours—or longer.

He was in trouble, and he knew it—more trouble than he’d ever been before in his life.  If he stopped to think about it, he’d have to admit that he really had no idea, just how to get himself out of it, either, given that he was secured well enough.  With every moment that ticked away, he could feel himself, growing weaker, and the only thing that he wanted to do was to close his eyes, to will away everything, to allow himself to fall back into that welcoming darkness that beckoned him like a lover.

‘ _Cartham . . ._ ’

The voice came out of nowhere.  It wasn’t the one that belonged to his youkai.  Softer, gentler, and so very familiar, and, through the haze that engulfed his mind, he realized that he knew that voice, that softest timbre, and it alone was enough—enough to drive back the threatening oblivion.

It was enough.

Suddenly, though, the door opened with a screech so shrill, so angry, that it made him grit his teeth once more.  A second later, however, he blinked, turned his head to the side when that newt-youkai—Chris, he had said his name was—stuck a kerosene lantern within inches of his face.

The chuckle that rumbled out of him was both arrogant and menacing, but Cartham reacted to neither and instead, slowly turned his head back, willing his eyes to focus on the bastard’s face.  Orange eyes, glowing in an entirely preternatural kind of way, pupils narrowed to mere slits, despite the darkness of the room, there was a slightly Asian kind of slant to those eyes, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he were seeing things or not when the flick of grotesquely long tongue shot out and disappeared almost faster than Cartham could process it.

He had a strange sort of roundness to his face, almost as though his features seemed to flow into each other, but as he stood back, reached over his head to hang the lantern from a suspended hook on a long chain, he chuckled, draping his now-free hand on his hip as he balanced a grimy-looking Mason jar against his upper thigh.

“Have a good nap, hunter?  Thought you were a goner, for sure, given that you’ve been unconscious for almost a full day,” he taunted, his words, echoing off the tin walls of the room in an unsettling kind of way, given that he’d barely raised his voice above a whisper.  “I’m guessing you’re here to hunt down that idiot of a brother of mine, and, considering he’s the one you were asking for, I’m pretty sure I’m right, hmm?”

When Cartham didn’t answer, the newt pulled an exaggerated frown.  “And here I thought you’d be at least a little grateful that I chose to spare your life, after all.  I mean, it would have been entirely too easy to just shoot you, dead, after you passed out, you know?  In fact, I admit, that was the original idea.  That would have been the easiest thing, sure, but . . . but then, it occurred to me, right?  If I let you live, then you’d owe me, wouldn’t you?  After all, it’d be rude as hell for you to hurt me after I spared your life, wouldn’t it?  Anyway, I thought that it’d be much better this way.  So, you’re still _alive!_   Which _kind_ of makes me God, don’t you think?”

“Your brother did a lot of shit,” Cartham said, trying desperately, not to slur his words.  Given the fog that he just couldn’t shake, the odds that he was talking without sounding like he was drunk were probably not that great.  “You’re really going this far to protect him?”

Chris barked out an incredulous laugh, emphasizing his amusement by taking a step back in a show of mock surprise.  “Protect him?  Is that what you think I’m doing?  Protect Chad because he’s family, because he’s flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone . . . which would be a really romantic way to view it, wouldn’t it?  Except I’m not nearly as interested in waxing poetic, you see?”  Slowly, his chuckling subsided, and he pulled Cartham’s prepaid cell out of his pocket, tapped it idly against his thigh.  “It’s interesting, don’t you think?  I know that it’s rude, but I took the liberty of going through your contacts while you were resting.  I thought maybe I should call someone—let them know that you’re running a little late . . . But here’s the odd thing.  Only one number on this.  So, I’m guessing that it belongs to someone . . . _very_ important, right?  Someone you may need to check in with while you’re out here on a hunt, and, given that someone of your repute couldn’t possibly be dumb enough for this one number to belong to someone like, say, a mate, then I’m guessing it belongs to someone even more important than that.  Am I right?”  Tapping the device against his chin, he seemed to be thinking things over, and, in the end, that smug grin returned.  “I know!  Why don’t we call it and see?”

Cartham didn’t reply.  He was already over the newt’s little games, and frankly, he didn’t much care if the bastard dialed that number or not.  Well, he did care, given that he was likely going to get an earful about the entire situation later—if he made it out of there, but . . .

Dialing the number, he messed with the buttons for a second as the phone rang.  Zelig answered on the second ring.  “Hey, I—”

“Is this Cain Zelig?  _The_ Cain Zelig?  Oh, my God!  Is that who this is?”

“. . . Who are you?”

Chris chuckled again, and the sound of it held a sharp edge and very little actual amusement as he held up the phone before his face, eyes staring at the screen that glowed in the filmy darkness just outside the ring of light nearest the hanging lantern.  “I suppose we haven’t been formally introduced, have we?  So sorry—Should I call you Lord Zelig?  That sounds a little strange, doesn’t it?  O benevolent master, maybe?”

“Again, who are you?” Cain repeated.  “And how did you get that phone?”

“Chris Eires, at your service,” he replied in a mocking sneer.  “As for the phone—I guess you’d like to say hello to your hunter, now wouldn’t you?  Hold on . . .”

He fiddled with a button, enabling the video feed, and then, he turned the device, but Cartham couldn’t quite make out the screen.  Too small and too far away, and his vision was still wavering precariously.  He wasn't sure how bad he looked, but he did hear the sharp hiss of breath coming from the phone.  “What do you want, Eires?”

“Well, I’d like a reward,” he said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

“For what?”

He chuckled.  “Oh, come on.  You sent this hunter out here to kill my brother, now didn’t you?  And, since he’s so incredibly inept, I took care of it for him.”

Cartham narrowed his eyes when Eires held up the Mason jar in front of the phone.  In the wavering light, he could see the dull shadow that fell across the glass, and he shook his head slowly as realization dawned upon him.  “You killed your own brother?” he growled before he could stop himself.

Eires didn’t even blink.  “Here’s _most_ of him,” he said, giving the jar a little shake.  “I gathered up what was left—though there’s probably some dirt in there, too . . .”

“You . . . _killed_ your own brother . . .?” Cain growled.

Eires rolled his eyes, tossed his head in an entirely dismissive kind of way.  “Incidentals, Zelig.  You sent him here to do the same, didn’t you?  Now, while I have your attention, let’s talk numbers, shall we?  How much were you going to pay your lousy hunter to kill Chad?”

“You—”

“Since I did his job for him, you can just send me his payment instead, right?  And then, there’s the matter of the hunter himself, isn’t there?  Just how much is he worth to you?  Of course, I’ll be reasonable and knock off a bit since I did shoot him.  It should be enough to pay for his ruined shirt.  Sound fair?”

Blinking rapidly to clear his wavering vision, Cartham grunted and tried to fight against the desire to black out again.  He wasn’t sure how much blood he’d lost already, but he knew well enough that it was a lot.  He could feel the weakening in his bones, a weariness in his soul.  He was in a lot of trouble physically, and he knew that, too.

Suddenly, though, the flash of green eyes, the sound of gentle laughter, echoed in his head, and he gritted his teeth as a surge of adrenaline blotted out the need to sleep again.  ‘ _K . . . Kelly . . ._ ’

‘ _Come on, Cartham.  You’re stronger than this,_ ’ she said in his mind.

“Hang up, Zelig,” he said, raising his voice so that Cain would hear him.  “You don’t need to bother with the likes of this bastard.”

“Cartham—”

“Cartham, Cartham,” Eires repeated, his face, shifting into a look of exaggerated concentration.  “Oh, _Cartham!_ ” he exclaimed, eyes widening as he broke into a really nasty grin.  “Is that right?  You’re _the_ Cartham?  Why, you’re famous around our kind, aren’t you?  The toughest of the Zelig’s hunters?”  He chuckled, setting the Mason jar aside on a rickety old stand before striding over to stand before him.  Grabbing a handful of Cartham’s hair, he yanked his head back, lips curling back in more of a snarl than a smile as his orange eyes took on an even brighter glow.  “You don’t look so tough right now, do you?”

“You shot me,” Cartham replied, mustering all of his bravado to steady his gaze.  “That’s hardly grounds to gloat.”

“Let him go,” Cain demanded.  Cartham could hear the no-nonsense tone of voice, and he had very little doubt that Zelig was dangerously close to losing his own temper.  “Your problem is me with, not him.”

“Yeah, but he’s here, and you’re not,” Eires shot back.   “I’ll tell you what.  I’ll give you a couple hours to think it over.  Of course, if it takes you too long, Cartham, here, is probably going to die, given that the slug is still embedded in his shoulder, and you, Great Leader, should know that that means his wound isn’t even beginning to heal.”  To emphasize his point, he yanked the edge of Cartham’s jacket back and pointed the phone at him, and even in the filmy darkness, the blood that soaked the white tee-shirt was impossible to miss.  “I’ll call you back in a couple hours,” Eires said, letting go of Cartham’s jacket and turning his back on him since he was confident that Cartham was secured, good and proper.

Cain started to speak again, but Eires disconnected the call before dropping the cell phone beside the jar of Chad’s ashes.

‘ _It’s now or never, Cartham.  Quickly, while he thinks he has the upper hand._ ’

Gritting his teeth, Cartham gathered all of his strength, every last bit of his will, knowing that what he was about to do was reckless, maybe even stupid, could be lethal, if he wasn’t careful, but seeing no other option.  With one mighty discharge of his youki, the chains on his jacket shot out, locked around Eires’ body before the newt could even turn around.  Grunting as he forced out more of his youki and trying his damndest to ignore the shattering burn that invaded every last cell of his body, as the chains lifted Eires off the ground and tightened around him, around his throat, Cartham tried to block out the excruciating pain—the rampant burn as his youki activated the ofuda in the handcuffs, as the sensation that he was burning, from the inside, out, ensnared him.

It wasn’t quite enough.  The rapid degeneration of his youki hurt in a way that Cartham just couldn’t fight against.  So insanely close to losing consciousness, he couldn’t help the moan, the harsh groan, that slipped from him as the chains slackened, dangerously close to falling away entirely.  It registered in his overtaxed brain that he was purifying himself, and somehow, there was a certain sense of poetic justice in that, too . . .

‘ _Focus, Cartham!  Fight!  You can do it!  You have to.  You have to come home to me.  You have to . . ._ ’

The sound of that voice, the echo of those words . . . It was enough to steel Cartham’s resolve, and, gathering the very last vestiges of his strength, bolstered by just the simple thought of Kelly, waiting at home for him, he forced out the youki he summoned together, grunting as Eires struggled against the chains, even as they tightened around him, but Cartham held on, and finally, with a harsh clank, the chains snapped Eires’ neck, and the youkai exploded in a wash of dust and light.

Cartham slumped to the side in the chair.  He was unconscious before the dust of Eires’ body settled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_Final Thought from_** **_Cartham_** :  
>  _Damn_ …


	18. The Longest Night

Cartham awoke with a sharply indrawn breath, a hiss of absolute agony, as his senses seemed to return, all at once, all in a rush—an excruciating rush of sensation that he didn’t want.  Pain so intense that it blotted out anything else, so exacting, so unrelenting, that he seemed to have lost any control that he should have retained, and it only seemed to intensify, magnify as the threads of his sanity quickly unraveled.

“Sorry . . . I’ve almost got it.  Just . . . Just hold still . . .”

The words made no sense to him, and he started to open his eyes, but the sudden and razor-sharp stab of pain wrung a scream from him.  He tried to jerk away, but he couldn’t do more than squirm to the side, and that only served to bring on even more mind-numbing spasms as the fingers, probing the gunshot wound, dug a little deeper.  So intense that he could feel the edges of oblivion, beckoning him, and yet, they weren’t quite close enough to grab hold of him, either, he almost thought that he might well be dying, but honestly, would death be this painful?  Somehow, he didn’t really think so.  The heavy breaths, bordering on hyperventilation, the little half-groans that he just couldn’t control . . . It felt like an eternity of anguish on top of ache that just wouldn’t stop . . .

“There . . . Sorry about that.”

Grinding his teeth together as the pain lessened to more of a dull throbbing ache, Cartham finally managed to open his eyes, blinking in a strange sort of disbelief when he finally focused on the concerned face of Cain Zelig, waving into and out of focus in time with the surges that still rattled through his body.  “Wh . . .? What are you . . . doing here?” he managed, but his voice sounded weak and rasping to his own ears.

Wiping his slightly shaking hands on a blood-stained towel, Cain sighed.  “What the hell do you mean, what am I doing here?  Christ, Deke . . .”

Cartham grimaced.  He couldn’t even move at the moment, and his wrists were giving his shoulder a run for the money in the pain department, too.  “I took care of Eires,” he muttered.  “Damn . . .”

Cain sighed again.  “I figured that much,” he growled, leaning forward to grab a bottle of saline to wash out the gunshot wound.  “What the hell happened?”

He didn’t answer, gritting his teeth as Cain slowly sprayed the liquid into the open hole in his shoulder.  It hurt, though not nearly as much as it had when Cain had dug the slug out.  “He pulled a gun on me,” he finally said when Cain set aside the bottle and reached for a few packets of gauze.  “It was in the middle of a bar, so I didn’t figure that fighting him there was a good idea.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Cain countered.  “I want to know how he was able to get the jump on you.  You’re not that careless.”

Cartham grimaced, hating the fact that his arms felt entirely useless, as though they were cast of lead.  “Call it an off day,” he muttered, letting his eyes close, only to moan when Cain nudged a straw between his lips.

“Drink,” he commanded in a tone that left no room at all for argument.

“Fuck off, Zelig,” he grumbled, forcing the straw back of out his mouth with his tongue and turning his head away.

“Drink or you’re going to the hospital,” Cain growled.  “You lost way too much blood, and you should go to the hospital, anyway.”

“No hospital,” he rumbled.  Letting go a heavy sigh meant to let the tai-youkai know, just how sorely put upon he was feeling, Cartham turned his head back and let him shove the straw into his mouth once more.  But he did drink the orange juice.  It tasted terrible, one of those cheap juices that retained a bit of a bitter tang and the metallic undertaste of the can it had been packaged in—not sweet enough, and thinner than it ought to be.

“It’s all I could get at that little corner store,” Cain said, correctly guessing Cartham’s thoughts.  “Everything else was closed when I got you back here into town.”

Cartham grunted, but kept dutifully drinking.  He wasn't sure if it was simply the sugar in the drink or something else, but slowly, he could feel the dregs of himself, slowly feeling restored.  His shoulder still ached, and his arms still felt heavy.  The burns on his wrists and forearms were still tingeing, but the fog that engulfed his brain slowly was losing its grasp.

After the second can of the metallic-tasting juice, Cartham managed to shove Cain’s hand and the can away.  “Enough,” he muttered, pushing himself up on his left elbow, grinding his teeth together as his body protested the movement.  “I think I’ll live.”

Can snorted and started to open his mouth, but the discreet tap on the door drew his attention.

Cartham frowned, but Cain didn’t seem at all alarmed as he got up and strode over to answer the knock.  “Took him long enough,” the tai-youkai grumbled.

The door opened, and Cartham blinked as Kichiro Izayoi slipped past Cain and into the room.  He carried with him a large black duffle bag, and he cast Cartham a cursory kind of glance as he dropped the bag onto a nearby table and pressed his thumb against the Identilock.  “I got the first flight I could, Zelig.  Give me a break, why don’t you?  Came here straight from the airport,” Kichiro said, yanking open the bag and digging in it to locate a stethoscope and some other things, along with a white plastic bag—sterile instruments, Cartham figured.  Only then, did his gaze return to Cartham when he turned on his heel to face him.  “Did you get the slug out?”

“Yeah, I did,” Cain replied.

Stepping over to the bed, Kichiro reached out to pull the gauze away from Cartham’s wounded shoulder, brows drawing together as he examined Cain’s handiwork.  “Looks like it’s already starting to heal, but it’ll probably take a day or two to close,” he concluded, patting the gauze back into place.  Then, he tore open a small, foil-wrapped roll of what almost seemed to be candies and shoved one of the tablets into Cartham’s mouth.  “Chew that slowly,” he commanded.  “May not taste the best, but they should be easier to take than drinking ten cans of juice.”

Rolling his eyes, but cooperating as he slowly chewed the chalky, sweet, strangely salty tablet, Cartham nodded.

Kichiro grimaced, lifting Cartham’s right arm to see the extent of the damage.  Cartham hadn’t bothered to look before, but he did now.  The flesh of his arm, from below his wrist to almost his elbow was a strange, sickly, greenish-purple kind of color, and all of the hair had been singed off.  An aching ring around his wrists were marked by blisters, and some had popped.

Kichiro sighed.  “Well, I’ve seen worse,” he said, sounding more than a little rueful.  Then, he shook his head almost incredulously.  “How you managed to fight with those handcuffs on . . . Damn . . .”

“I’m fine,” Cartham muttered but took the next tablet that Kichiro dropped in his hand.  He nearly dropped it, and he grimaced, frowning in concentration as he willed his fingers to open and close.

“Your hands all right?” Kichiro asked, casting a quick look at Cain.  He sounded nonchalant enough, but Cartham didn’t miss the glance exchanged between the two, either.

“Fine,” he repeated.  “Look, I’ll feel a lot better once I get home and get some rest,” he assured them, pulling away from Kichiro’s grasp as he forced himself to sit up, glaring at the two when they both moved to push him back down again.  “I’m all right.”

“You need to rest, at least a day or two,” Kichiro insisted, crossing his arms over his chest, hanyou ears atop his head, flicking in obvious irritation.

“Don’t you two have mates back home?  Go make their lives miserable, and leave me the hell alone,” Cartham grouched.  He was very aware of the looks that were still passing between them, but he didn’t care.  No, he couldn’t help it.  As though some invisible force were goading him on, he couldn’t help the overwhelming need to get out of there, to get back home.

Kichiro sighed.  “Hold on, will you?  Cain, would you mind, running out and getting him more juice?  I’ll clean up your wrists while he’s gone.  At least, give your body some time to replace the blood you’ve lost, all right?  A few hours.  Then, we’ll call it good as long as you’re not passed out, anyway.”

Cartham still wasn't happy with the compromise, but he figured it was probably the best he was going to get.  He relented with a curt nod and grudgingly settled back against the pillows once more.

 

* * *

 

The incessant ticking of the clock was driving her mad.

Lying in bed, eyes wide open, blinking into the stillness that she could actually feel, like a physical presence that was hanging over her, like an avalanche that she knew was coming, but it just refused to let go.

She’d felt it from the moment that Cartham had left her, and sure, he’d been on other jobs many times—some that she knew of; others that maybe she didn’t, and they were never a big deal.

At first, she’d thought that maybe she was just thinking about it too much, dwelling upon it because it was the first real hunt that he’d been called out on since she’d moved in with him.  Maybe it was just because of the strain of the gala the night before he’d left, but . . .

But it felt off, and in those first few days, she’d managed to convince herself that she was just being silly, worrying when there was no need for it.  After all, he was good at his job, right?  He’d been doing it for years—decades—well over a century, maybe two or more . . .

He’d been gone for almost two weeks, and tomorrow . . .

Reaching up with a heavy sigh that trembled upon her lips, she rubbed her hot and grainy eyes, hating the evil silence.

She’d had work to keep her at least a little preoccupied, at least, until today.  Today, though, was Christmas Eve, and she had been off, and all day long, she’d thought about little else, dwelling upon the maddening emptiness that surrounded her so very tightly.

If she could just remember what it was that had woken her from the fitful sleep after she’d finally drifted off last night, sometime after midnight.  Startled out of her slumber, she’d sat up straight, drenched in a cold sweat, her heart, pounding a million miles an hour . . . Her first thought at that time was that maybe it was another of her nightmares, but for some reason, that didn’t seem quite right.  Whatever it was, she’d found that she couldn’t get back to sleep and had spent the rest of the night, tossing and turning until she’d finally given up, somewhere around five in the morning.  Then, she’d sat on a stool at the counter in the darkened kitchen, staring at the softly blinking light on the coffee machine as she drank four pots before noon.  Every second that ticked away still felt like an eternity, even when she’d deliberately tried to blank her mind, tried not to think, at all.

Every little noise made her jump, made her turn her head, to stare at the door, as though she were willing Cartham to walk through it.  The refrigerator broke into a low hum, and she sucked in a sharp breath, unable to control the lurch in her gut despite the familiarity of the sound.  When her phone rang around two—it was Lyza, wanting to wish her a happy Christmas—she’d very nearly screamed, only to have to force down the unaccountable rage that shot through her that anyone other than Cartham would have the nerve to disturb her.

Even after she’d finally turned on the television, just to keep herself from going completely insane, she sat on the sofa, staring blankly at the screen without really seeing a thing.  Every little sound that was out of the ordinary set her teeth to grinding, and if she’d reached for her tablet that was connected to the main security cameras in the warehouse, she’d done so a thousand times, scrolling through each video feed, over and over again: wishing, hoping . . . praying . . .

But still, he wasn’t home.

Sometime this afternoon, the unwelcome thought had crept into her mind: what if Cartham had finished his job?  What if he’d decided to go back to Maine?  He hadn’t made any bones about the fact that he still owned property there.  What if the fiasco of a gala had made him realize, just how stupid, how ridiculously needy, Kelly really was?  She couldn’t think of a single reason, why he’d decide to stay here, especially after all of that, even though her rational thinking told her that he wouldn’t just do that on a whim, that he’d at least tell her.

Of course, he would.

But no, that wasn’t quite it, either, and she knew that, too.  Just how she knew it, she wasn’t sure, but as the hours dragged on, compounded by the days that had already passed, that sense of foreboding had grown larger, heavier, thicker, until all that was left was the unshakable feeling that something most definitely was wrong.

She’d even texted him before she’d climbed into bed.  It was dumb, and it was futile.  She’d seen his phone, laying on his dresser when he’d left.

Rolling onto her side, she sighed into the darkness, gritting her teeth, smashing her fist against her mouth as she tried to bite back the urge to scream.  She could hear herself blink, and the sound of her own breathing was rasping and uneven.  A strange pain erupted in her, not quite in her chest, but up and to the right—a pain that was a strange kind of throbbing that she’d felt, off and on, since she’d been startled awake last night . . .

Tossing the blankets back, she stumbled out of bed, rubbing her arms as though she were trying to comfort herself—maybe she was—as she shuffled over to the window.  There was nothing to see—nothing but a barren circle of old and tired pavement, illuminated by the raw glow of a street lamp over to the side, almost out of her line of vision.  The blackened alley was empty—desolate and barren—and she winced as she turned away from it, as her eyes swept over the unkind night inside the room once more.

 ‘ _You’re torturing yourself, Kelly . . . Surely, he’ll be home soon._ ’

The words were kind, but the tone was not.  She didn’t miss the hint of uncertainty that belied it.

‘ _If . . . If he comes back, I’ll . . . I’ll tell him,_ ’ she thought, realizing in a vague way that she sounded as though she were bartering.  ‘ _I’ll tell him how . . . how I feel . . ._ ’

And yet, the moment she thought it, she winced.  It was so easy to make promises in the dark, wasn’t it?  Easier to make them when the sense of desperation, the very idea of seeing him, walk through the doors, somehow felt so far away . . .

The sudden thud of the warehouse’s heating system kicked on, and Kelly couldn’t help the sharp gasp that felt more like a scream as she smashed her hands over her ears, fighting against the hurtful rise of hysteria that licked at her heels.  A sudden flash, burned in front of her eyes: a vision or a warning, maybe just the manifestation of every fear that had been preying upon her: Cartham, slumped to the side in a strange chair, hands bound, jacket falling open, his white tee-shirt that was a paler shade of gray in the vague and strange light—and a huge, blackened splotch.

“No!” she gasped, whipping around, grasping her phone, her hands shaking so badly that she nearly dropped it.  It took four tries to punch in Cain’s number, and she couldn’t help the half-whimper, half-outraged scream that slipped out of her when the call went straight to voicemail.  Out of sheer frustration, she tossed the device on the floor.  It hit the area rug beside her bed and bounced, sliding across the wooden planks and skittering off, somewhere under the bed as she stumbled toward the door.

She wanted—no, _needed_ —to get out of there, had to find a way to settle her own emotions before she lost her mind.  In a distant kind of way, she could hear her youkai-voice, trying to reassure her that she was freaking out over nothing, but this time—this time—it didn’t work.

Out into the hallway, down the short corridor, she reached for the metal railing, only to stop short, veering to the side, hand outstretched, and she pushed Cartham’s door open.

And, as quickly as that, she felt a sudden sense of calm, of familiarity, and she choked out a sob, stumbling into the room, toward his bed.  Everything about the room, screamed of Cartham, as though his very youki had permeated everything within.  The sense of his presence was so strong, almost as though he were still somewhere close by, and it was that feeling that drew her forward, that moved her feet without her really thinking about it.  Yanking back the covers, she climbed onto it, pulled those same blankets up, even as the tears slipped down her face.  Everything about it smelled like him, and with that came the fragile sense of everything being all right, even if she wasn't sure she really believed that.

Maybe she was simply too tired, too exhausted, to fight it; she really didn’t know.

And she didn’t feel it as her eyes slipped closed, and she didn’t realize it when she finally, blessedly, slipped off into a sleep that was less fitful—and was blessedly devoid of dreams.

 

* * *

 

Cartham heaved a sigh, let his eyes drift closed for a long moment as he sat, slouching slightly, on the

‘62 Harley Sportster.  The sigh echoed off the walls in the cavernous warehouse, and he had to force himself to get off of the bike, to head for the stairs, despite every cell in his body, just wanting to shut down.

He had never, ever felt so exhausted in all of his life.

He’d managed to put on a good show, though, he figured—good enough to convince Cain and Kichiro that they could head back to Maine without having to worry that he was about to drop dead, anyway.  He’d negotiated with them, humoring them while he drank the juice they forced upon him while Kichiro had drained the remaining blisters on his wrists and had treated them with a thick and pungent salve before wrapping both in gauze and changing the dressing on his shoulder.  Then he’d forced Cartham to take the rest of the salve with him.

“ _I’ll call you in a couple days, but if you need anything before that, feel free to get a hold of me,” Kichiro said, leveling a no-nonsense look at Cartham.  “I’ll also talk to a friend of mine, see if he can’t get you in to make sure there’s no permanent nerve damage going on_.”

“ _Nerve damage?  I’m fine,” Cartham scoffed, but he had to grimace when he again tried to flex his fingers.  He could do it, but he couldn’t quite make as tight of a fist as he ought to.  “I’ll_ be _fine, anyway_ . . .”

“ _Yeah, well, until you’re tested and fully recovered, consider yourself on paid leave,” Cain said in his most authoritative tai-youkai voice.  “Take a vacation or something.  God knows you haven’t had one in . . .  ever, I don’t think_ . . .”

 _It was on the tip of his tongue to argue with Cain, simply on principle, but in the end, he sighed.  “Yeah, okay_.”

Before they’d allowed him to leave, though, Kichiro had given him the rest of the roll of tablets and packed four bottles of juice into his bag, as well, instructing him to finish the tablets and to stop every half hour or so to drink the juice, too, but then, he’d warned him to take it easy on his stomach for a day or two, just to make sure that everything was all right.

And then, they’d finally, blessedly, let him leave on the just over three-hour ride back to Las Vegas.

To be completely honest, it was pure strength of will that had gotten Cartham through that last hour, and, he was finding that the last part—getting up the staircase to the apartment—was fast sapping every last bit of strength that he possessed.

Finally, though, he hit the landing and slapped his hand on the panel to lock down the warehouse before letting himself into the apartment as quietly as he could.  He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up with only minimal irritation as he glanced over.  The clock over the television said it was almost three a.m.—at least, that’s what he thought it said.  His vision was slightly blurred.  All the same, he leaned heavily on the wall and kicked off his boots.  Because of his injuries, he hadn’t bothered, re-arming himself.  His weapons, including his gun, were still in the saddlebag, attached to the bike, and he figured they were all safe enough, given that the whole place was secured.

He pushed himself away from the wall and drew a deep breath—or at least, as deeply as he could, grimacing when he realized that all he could smell was the salve that Kichiro had slathered all over him—and his own blood that had still seeped out of the gunshot wound.  It felt a lot better, but he could tell it hadn’t closed completely, and no manner of arguing had convinced him not to take a shower at the hotel.  They’d worried that it could potentially cause his wound to open up again and to cause more heavy bleeding, but he’d insisted.  He hadn’t, however, bothered with another shirt, mostly because all he’d brought were tee-shirts, and pulling anything over his head was just not even something he wanted to try.

Trudging through the apartment and up the steps, he was more than ready to crash in bed, but first, he moved down the hall to check on Kelly.

She wasn’t there.

Frowning, blinking, trying to make sure that he wasn’t simply being delusional, he finally flipped on the bedroom light as he scowled at the mussed and rumpled blankets—and no Kelly.  Her bathroom door was open, so she wasn't in there, and with a mumbled curse, he slapped the wall panel to shut off the lights, striding toward the stairs as the weariness that had plagued him, faded fast.

‘ _Cartham, wait,_ ’ his youkai-blood interrupted before he could reach the stairs.  ‘ _She’s here . . ._ ’

Stopping abruptly, Cartham frowned, turning his head, scanning the apartment.  ‘ _But_ . . .’

‘ _She’s . . . in your room_ . . .’

He slowly, cautiously, stepped forward, and even though he couldn’t smell her, he could feel her: the richness of her youki.

Stumbling forward, he stared down at her, eyes widening, then narrowing, as though he thought maybe she was some kind of illusion.  But no, curled up on her side, looking so very small under the blankets, in his huge bed, she slept soundly, so soundly, and even as he watched her, she seemed to relax.

“Kelly,” he breathed in a whisper, a strange kind of prickling, suddenly erupting behind his eyelids.  She didn’t wake up, but she did sigh, and, for the first time in the last couple weeks, Cartham smiled.  ‘ _Why . . .?_ ’

His youkai chuckled.  ‘ _Don’t be dumb, Cartham.  She has the power to make you feel better, just because she exists.  Your mate’s supposed to do that, don’t you think?_ ’

‘ _My . . .?  K . . . Kelly . . ._ ’

It should have been more shocking, shouldn’t it?  A realization like that should have been accompanied by some sort of fanfare, right?  But it wasn’t.  No, what he felt was more of a sense of understanding, of it being entirely natural, as though he’d known it on some level all along . . .

Cartham didn’t even question it, and maybe he was too exhausted to really give it much thought.  Slipping into the bed beside her, he didn’t have to do anything as she rolled toward him, her body, molding against him in a completely easy kind of way, as though she’d been waiting for him to get home, just as much as he’d wanted to get back to her, too.

And he’d barely gotten his arm wrapped around her waist before he, too, fell fast asleep . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Not edited.  Posted to cheer up a friend.  I can’t do much for you, Laura, but I hope that this chapter makes you smile!  Don’t know when I’ll post again, but enjoy_!
> 
> **_== == == == == == == == == ==_ **
> 
> **_Reviewers_ **
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> **_MMorg  
> _** DiamondRo5e
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> **_AO3  
> _** Elizabeth ——— cutechick18 ——— TheWonderfulShoe ——— minthegreen ——— Paola ——— Courtney Jacobs ——— ThatGuy
> 
> **_==========_ **
> 
> **_Final Thought from_** **_Kelly_** :  
>  _Finally_ …

**Author's Note:**

>  _Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in **Cacophony** ):  I do not claim any rights to **InuYasha** or the characters associated with the anime/manga.  Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al.  I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize_. 
> 
> ~ _Sue_ ~


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